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Writings of Dr. Edward H. Clarke. 



SEX IN EDUCA TION ; or, A Fair Chance for Girls. By 
E. H. Clarke, M. D. i6mo, $1.25. 

Dr. Clarke has a right to be heard, on account of the study he has 
made of the physiological principles involved in the discussion, as 
well as for his extensive practice in cases of disorders arising from a 
neglect of proper precautions during the school years of our young 
people. I am prepared to subscribe to every one of his most com- 
prehensive propositions. — L. Agassiz. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. By E. H. Clarke, M. D. 

i6mo, ;^i.25. 

No two books have been written this many a year which to our 
way of thinking have a more important relation to the physical and 
mental welfare of the race than these, — "Sex in Education" and 
" The Building of a Brain." — The Independent (New York). 



VISIONS. A Study of False Sight (Pseudopia). By E. H. 
Clarke, M. D. With a portrait of the author, and an Introduc- 
tion by Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D. i6mo, $1.50. 

One of the most fascinating volumes which for a long time have 
issued from the American press. . . . Especially will the essay 
be useful to those who are called to meet superstitious fancies, and to 
combat those nightmares of gloom and spectral terror which to so 
many minds hang about the region of death and the grave. — The 
Cojtgregationalist (Boston). 



*** For sale ly Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, 
by tJie Publishers, 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston, Mass. 



THE 




S^3/^ 



Building of a Brain. 



BY 

EDWARD H. CLARKE, M.D., 

AUTHOR OF "sex IN EDUCATION." 




BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

1882. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

EDWARD H. CLARKE, M.D., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



*' Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, 
Et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia Victrix." 

HORATIUS, Ep. I., X. 

" What is the Light of Nature in Man, but that Order which the 
most Glorious Former of all things hath set (like Wheeles in 
Clocks or Watches) a going in all his Creatures? 

" Some have observed that in the Insensible Creatures to which 
the most High hath only given Beings, that there maybe observed 
a Male and Female amongst them. 

" This is more observable in Vegetables or growing Creatures, as 
in Plants, Trees, Herbs, Flowers, &c. 

" More yet in Sensitives, as Birds, Beasts, Fishes. 

" Most of aU in Eationals : Men and Women, whom the most 
High hath so wonderfully distinguished. 

"It is true, that in Religious and Christian Matters there is no 
respect of pei-sons with God, as of Man before the Woman : other- 
wise than to order Natural and Civil. 

" The Woman is Predestinated, is Called, is Justified, is Glori- 
fied, and wears that Golden Chain as well as the Wisest and 
Strongest of Mankinde." — Roger Williams : George Fox 
Digg'd out of his Burrovves, Boston 1676 Appendix p. 25. 

" Warum war die Jugenderziehung der Griechen eine so erfolg- 
reiche? WeU sie auf die physisehe Erziehuug dieselbe Auf- 
merksamkeit richtete, als auf die geistige." — Dk. Hekmait 
Klencke: Schul-DidtetiTc. 

3 



CONTENTS 



PAET I. 
Natube's Working-Plans 13 

PAET n. 
An Ekror in Febiale Building , ... 69 

PAET m. 
A Glimpsb at English Brain-Building . , . 145 



PREFACE. 



The exciting cause, to use a medical phrase, of the 
appearance of the present essay, may be inferred from 
the following correspondence : — 

Peoeia, Illinois, April 25, 1874. 
Edward H. Clarke, M.D. 

Dear Sir, — The Executive Committee of the iN'a- 
tional Educational Association invite you to pre- 
pare for the next session of the Association a paper 
on the subject of the "Education of Girls." This 
invitation may be considered as not coming from the 
committee only, but from several of the educational 
men and women of the country, who have suggested 
that the question would be a profitable one for con- 
sideration at that time. 

The widespread comment which your book has 
created, and the numerous replies it has elicited, will 
insure you the best attention of the Association. I 
trust that you will consider the invitation of the com- 
mittee favorably, and be able to give an affirmative 
reply. I remain truly yours, 

S. H. White, 
Chairman Ex. Com. Nat. Ed. Asso. 

7 



8 PREFACE, 

Boston, May 5, 1874. 
S. H. White, Esq., 

Chairman Ex. Com. Nat. Ed. Association. 

Dear Sir, — Your favor of last month, inviting me, 
in behalf of the Executive Committee of the National 
Educational Association, to prepare a paper for the 
next session of the Association on the subject of the 
" Education of Girls," was received about a week ago. 
My reply has been delayed till the present time in 
order to give the matter my most serious considera- 
tion. 

When I published my essay upon " Sex in Educa- 
tion," it was my intention not to publish any thing 
more upon that subject, but to leave it for educators 
to discuss, if they considered it worthy of their dis- 
cussion. Your invitation has obliged me to recon- 
sider that decision. Personally I should prefer to 
remain silent, and let the seed that has been sown 
germinate and grow without my interference. On 
the other hand, I am not insensible to the obligation 
which rests upon every one to render whatever service 
he can, however little, to any good cause that is 
brought to his notice. I therefore accept the invita- 
tion which you have extended, and remain 
Very truly yours, 

Edw. H. Clarke. 

Shortly before leaving Boston for the meeting of 
the Association at Detroit, the author was informed 



PREFACE. 9 

that half an hour was the time allotted for the deliv- 
ery of his address. In consequence of this limitation, 
only a portion of it was imposed upon the Association. 
He has ventured, however, to offer the whole paper, 
with additions, to the public in its present form. 
The first part contains the address as originally pre- 
pared : the second and third parts exhibit facts and 
statements, derived from various sources, which are 
not only intimately connected with the subject of 
the address, but indicate and illustrate the error in 
our American system of female education that has 
recently been so largely discussed. 

Should the reader find the following pages too long 
for his leisure, or too dull for his thought, he has an 
easy remedy in his own hands ; and however soon 
they drop away from the eye, and out of the thought 
of the public, the author will still hope that the dis- 
cussion which has been started, and the investigations 
which have been undertaken, concerning the relation 
of sex to education, will continue, till Nature's funda- 
mental distinctions are practically and permanently 
recognized in and out of school. Then one great 
difficulty in the way of solving the "woman ques- 
tion" will be removed, and more rapid progress in 
human development be made possible. 

18 Aelington Street, Boston. 
September, 1874. 



NATURE'S WORKING -PLANS. 




THE BUILDING OF A BRAH. 



PART I. 

NATTJEE'S WORKING-PLANS. 

*' The entire bodily system, tliough in. varying degrees, 
is In intimate alliance with mental functions. To confine 
our study to the nervous substance would be to misrepre- 
sent the connection; and the knowledge of that sub- 
stance, however complete, would not suffice for the 
solution of the problem."— AiiEXANBER Bain, LL.D.: 
Mind and Body, p. 4. 

No race of human kind has yet obtained 
a permanent foothold upon this continent. 
The Asiatics trace back their life in Asia 
so far, that the distance between to-day and 
their recorded starting-point seems like a 
geologic epoch. The descendants of the 
Ptolemys still cultivate the banks of the Nile. 
The race that peopled Northern Europe when 
Greece and Rome were young, not only re- 
tains its ancient place and power, but makes 

13 



14 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

itself felt and heard throughout the world. 
On this continent, races have been born and 
lived and disappeared. Mounds at the 
West, vestiges in Florida, and traces else- 
where, proclaim at least two extinct races. 
The causes of their disappearance are undis- 
covered. We only know that they are gone. 
The Indian, whom our ancestors confronted, 
was losing his hold on the continent when 
" The Mayflower " anchored in Plymouth 
Bay, and is now also rapidly disappearing. 
It remains to be seen if the Anglo-Saxon 
race, which has ventured upon a continent 
that has proved the tomb of antecedent 
races, can be more fortunate than they in 
maintaining a permanent grasp upon this 
Western world. One thing, at least, is 
sure, — it will fail, as previous races have 
failed, unless it can produce a physique and 
a brain capable of meeting successfully the 
demands that our climate and civilization 
make upon it. But the Anglo-Saxon will 
not be satisfied, and ought not to be, with 
simply securing a permanent foothold here. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 15 

He will not rest content with mere acclima- 
tion and existence. The sponge and the 
oyster can exist, and perpetuate their kind. 
He must do more than they: he must as- 
cend in the scale of being, as weU as exist. 

Two duties, then, are imposed upon our 
civilization. Two problems are presented 
to our educators. The duties are, first, to 
secure the perpetuation of the race in Amer- 
ica; and, secondly, to provide also for the 
survival of the fittest here. The prob- 
lems are, first, to develop the individual to 
the highest degree ; and, secondly, to obtain 
this development without interfering with 
the perpetuation of the best. In other 
words, humanity demands, and our educa- 
tion must give, both the highest develop- 
ment of the individual, and the perpetuation 
of individuals thus developed, or, as it is 
commonly expressed, the perpetuation of 
the fittest. It has been argued, with much 
apparent force, that these two results are 
impossible, because the highest cerebral de- 
velopment, being made at the expense of 



16 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

the rest of the organization, sterilizes the 
individuals whose brains attain such sup- 
posed magnificent proportion and quality. 
This is not the place, nor does it fall within 
the scope of this paper, to point out the fal- 
lacy of such a statement. It is referred to 
only for the purpose of calling attention to 
a physiological error that has already been 
grafted into our system of education, and 
which exerts its most pernicious influence 
in our common and high schools; viz., the 
error of exclusively developing one part of 
the organization at the expense of and by 
ignoring the rest. Every physiologist knows 
that one-sided development is possible, and 
may be artificially attained. The athlete 
may develop his muscle, the glutton his 
stomach, and the sensuahst his power, at the 
expense of the brain; and, conversely, the 
brain may be developed at the expense of 
muscle, stomach, and reproductive force; 
and this inharmonious growth may be carried 
so far, by dwarfing more or less of the or- 
ganization, as to produce what physiology 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 17 

calls monstrous brains, stomaclis, muscles, 
and the like, — that is, monstrosities, which, 
by a beneficent law of Nature, cannot per- 
petuate themselves.* 

How much the literature, politics, and 
morals of the world may have suffered from 
the abnormal intro-cranial development of 
some, who, like Byron, Napoleon, and Loy 
ola, have compelled the world's attention, 



* "Not only are the energies of the Esquimaux ex- 
pended mainly in defending himself against loss of heat, 
and in laying up stores by which he may continue to do 
this during the arctic night, but his physiological processes 
are greatly modified to the same end. Without fuel, and, 
indeed, unable to burn within his snow hut any thing 
more than an oil-lamp, lest the walls should melt, he has 
to keep up that bodily warmth which even his thick fur 
dress fails to retain, by devouring vast quantities of blub- 
ber and oil; and his digestive system, heavily taxed in 
providing the wherewith to meet excessive loss by radia- 
tion, supplies less material for other vital purposes. This 
great physiological cost of individual life, indirectly check- 
ing the multiplication of individuals, arrests social evolu- 
tion" (Herbert Spencer: Climate and Social Development, 
in Popular Science Monthly, July, 1874, p. 322.) The 
distinguished author illustrates the same law by the de 
velopment of the Fuegians. 
2 



18 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

"we may guess, but •can never know. Shak- 
speare's brain probably crowned a nervous 
system and a body that presented very little 
inharmonious growth. Doubtless the same 
may be said of Mary Somerville. 

Brains rule the world and the individual. 
The problem of the age which educators are 
to solve, with all the light that experience, 
aided by physiology and reflection, can give, 
is, how to build the best brains out of the 
materials given to work with. The demand 
of humanity is. Give me the best possible 
brain for men and women both. For- 
tunately, the necessity of answering this 
demand admits of no dispute. The best pos- 
sible brain is as much a necessity for one sex 
as for the other. Indeed, such is the divine 
aUiance between the sexes, that it is impossi- 
ble to produce the best possible brain for 
one sex, unless you produce the best possible 
brain for the other also. This constitution 
of human nature — the interdependence of 
the sexes, by which the advance of one is 
contingent upon the advance of the other. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN 19 

the best development of the masculine and 
feminine brain made to wait on each other, 
which together can unlock the secrets of the 
universe — is admirably expressed by Emer- 
son, in language that is as full of physiologi- 
cal truth as of poetic beauty : — 

"From the twins is notliing hidden; 
To the pair is naught forbidden; 
Hand in hand the comrades go 
Every nook of Nature through; 
Each for other they were bom, 
Each can other best adorn." 

Unless men and women both have normally- 
developed brains, the nation will go down. 
As good a brain is needed to govern a house- 
hold as to command a ship ; to guide a 
family aright as to guide a Congress aright ; 
to do the least and the greatest of woman's 
work as to do the least and the greatest 
of man's work. Moreover, in both sexes, 
the brain is the conservator of strength 
and prolonger of life. It is not only the 
organ of intellection, volition, and spiritual 
power ; but the force evolved from it, more 



20 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

than the force evolved from any other organ, 
enables men and women to bear the burdens, 
and perform the duties, of life ; and with its 
aid, better than with any surgery, can they 
overcome the "ills that flesh is heir to." 

But the organs whose normal growth and 
evolution lead up to the brain are not the 
same in men and women; consequently 
their brains, though alike in microscopic 
structure, have infused into them different, 
though equally excellent qualities. If it 
were not so, Emerson's lines would be 
absurd, sex would be a myth, men and 
women would be identical ; and it would be 
folly to discuss the relation of sex to edu- 
cation. 

Poor brains, automatic ganglia, will grow, 
like weeds, without cultivation, on any soil. 
The best brains, the only sort the world 
needs, are built by education, or educated 
evolution, in accordance with working-plans 
that Nature furnishes. Let us endeavor, 
then, to get some notion, however crude, of 
the way in which the divine Architect, whom 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 21 

we know as Nature's God, builds a human 
brain. By so doing we shall clear the way 
to a correct understanding of the true rela- 
tion of sex to education. 

The building of a brain : this is to-day's 
social problem; and teachers are largely 
charged with its solution. When this is 
solved, all other problems will be easily dis- 
posed of; for a human brain is the last, the 
highest, " the consummate flower " of Na- 
ture's development on this planet. It can- 
not be made, except as the crown of the 
rest of the body, and, to a large extent, out 
of the rest of the body. No perfect brain 
ever crowns an imperfectly developed body. 
When Michael Angelo reared St. Peter's dome 
in the air, he made every stone beneath con- 
tribute not only to the use and beauty of the 
part he put it in, but to the support and 
power of the dome. The brain must be 
built up in connection with the building of 
the rest of the body, remembering constantly 
that the imperfections of the latter reflect 
themselves upon the former. 



22 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

In one sense, the process of brain-building 
is alike for the two sexes ; in another sense, 
it is different. It is the same for both, inas- 
much as the process which eyolves the best 
possible brain, by means of appropriate brain- 
exercise, including cerebration, out of the 
underlying organization, is alike in the two 
sexes. 

It is different for the two, in so far as there 
are any organs, or sets of organs, in the struc- 
ture of one sex that are not in the structure 
of the other. Provided the organization of 
both sexes is normal, and all their functions 
normally performed, the same sort of brain- 
work will develop the bram of each. But 
if the methods of education render abnor- 
mal any part of the body, or interfere with 
any function, there will not only be damage 
to the part disturbed, and friction in its 
function, but the brain will suffer just in pro- 
portion to the importance of the organs dis- 
turbed, and the amount of the disturbance. 

It will avoid confusion, and, perhaps, pre- 
vent misconception, if, before proceeding 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 23 

farther in this discussion, the meaning is 
clearly defined in which some of the terms 
employed in it are used. 

First, brain is used as the correlative of 
mind, not from a materialistic point of view, 
as if mind (including volition) and brain were 
identical, but because we know, and only 
can know, the mind through the brain. The 
quantity and quality of the latter determine 
for us the quantity and quality of the former. 
The development of the soul and mind — 
of the ego — resolves itself into the devel- 
opment of the brain. The artist who builds 
a fountain looks carefully after the strength 
and structure, the quality and form, of what 
he builds, and troubles himself very little 
about the water which is to animate his 
work. He knows that jet and drop and 
spray will pour out just as the fountain per- 
mits the flow. So with the brain. In pro- 
portion to the character of its structure will 
be the manifestation of mind and spirit' 
through it. Build the brain aright, and the 
Divine Spirit will inhabit and use it. Build 



24: THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

it wrongly, and the Devil will employ it. 
The development of the mind, then, means 
practically the development of the brain ; * 
and the building of a brain is a part of 
education. 

* *' Whatever may be our opinions as to the relations 
between 'mind' and 'matter,* our observation only ex- 
tends to thought and emotion as connected with the living 
body, and, according to the general verdict of conscious- 
ness, more especially with certain parts of the body; 
namely, the central organs of the nervous system. The 
bold language of certain speculative men of science has 
frightened some more cautious persons away from a sub- 
ject as much belonging to natural history as the study of 
any other function in connection with its special organ. 
tf ;Mr. Huxley maintains that his thoughts and ours are 
'the expression of molecular changes in that matter of 
life which is the source of our other vital phenomena;' if 
the Eev. Prof, Houghton suggests, though in the most 
guarded way, that ' our successors may even dare to 
speculate on the changes that converted a crust of bread, 
or a bottle of wine, in the brain of Swift, Moliere, or 
Shakspeare, into the conception of the gentle Ghtmdal- 
clitch, the rascally Sganarelle, or the immortal Falstaff,' — 
all this need not frighten us from studying the conditions 
of the thinking organ in connection with thought, just as 
we study the eye in its relations to sight. The brain is an 
instrument necessary, so far as our direct observation 
extends, to thought. The 'materialist' believes it to be 



TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 25 

Secondly, brain is here made to include 
the cerebro-spinal axis. The spinal cord, 
medulla oblongata, and cerebellum are so 
intimately connected with the brain in func- 
tion and structure, that it is difficult to draw 
an exact line of demarcation between them : 
for our present purpose, it is better not to 
undertake to do so, but to consider the brain 
as standing for this whole group of organs. 
There are physiologists who would make the 
brain include all the ganglia of the nervous 
system and their inter-nuncial fibres.* 



wound up by the ordinary cosmic forces, and to give them 
out again as mental products ; the ' spiritualist ' believes ki 
a conscious entity, not mterchangeable with motive force, 
which plays upon this instrument. But the instrument 
must be studied by the one as much as by the other : tne 
piano which the master touches must be as thoroughly 
understood as the musical box or clock which goes of 
itself by a spring or weight." — OiiiVEB Wendell Holmes : 
Mechanism in Thought and Morals, pp. 7-9. 

* " In that action and re-action, however, between the 
mind and all that is outside of it, in which the conscious 
life of every human ego consists, the whole cerebro-spinal 
system participates." — "Wllliaivi B. Cabpenteb: Princi- 
ples of Mental Physiology, p. 123, Am. ed. 



26 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

Thirdly, let us come to an agreement as to 
the meaning of education. Education and 
study are a]3t to be confounded as synony- 
mous ; whereas study, or literary culture, is 
only one part of education. An educated 
person is something more, and much more, 
than a college graduate. In this essay let us 
remember that education is used not in the 
narrow sense of book-learning, or of school- 
training, but in its proper philosophical and 
physiological signification, — of all that train- 
ing, alike of the brain and of the body, which 
yields the just and harmonious development 
of every organ.* When such harmonious 



* " Education is an affair of the laws of our being, in- 
volving a wide range of considerations, — an affair of the 
air respired, its moisture, temperature, density, purity, 
and electrical state in their physiological effects ; an affair 
of food, digestion, and nutrition ; of the quantity, quality, 
and speed of the blood sent to the brain ; of clothing and 
exercise, fatigue and repose, health and disease, or varia- 
ble volition and automatic nerve-action ; of fluctuating 
feeling, redundancy and exhaustion of nerve-power, 
sensuous impressibility, temperament, famil}^ history, con- 
stitutional predisposition, and unconscious influence ; of 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 27 

development is attained, the cerebral ganglia 
in both sexes become the controlling power 
o'f the organization ; education then has 
done its perfect work ; and mind pours out its 
noblest manifestations. 

One of the indispensable objects of educa- 
tion is to build a brain, and to build one of 
the right sort. In this architecture, schools 
and colleges play an important part. Their 
methods may aid or obstruct Nature's pro- 
cess of building. Many of them have ob- 
structed and almost thwarted Nature's way 
of work. Especially is this true with regard 
to American female education, which has 
looked upon a girl as if she were a boy, 
treated her as if she Mrere a boy, and trained 
her as if she were to have a boy's destiny. 
In the " higher education " of woman, which 
the future has in store for her, this error of 



material siirroundings, and a host of agencies which 
stamp themselves upon the plastic organism, and re- 
appear in character." —PopwZar /S'cience Monthly, Novem- 
ber, 1873, p. 112. 



28 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

ignoring her peculiar organization must be 
avoided. How to avoid it, woman must 
largely determine for herself. " Now when 
there is so much agitation to give woman 
larger mental opportunities, and she is press- 
ing for the advantages of a higher education, 
we have a right to expect that she will con- 
sider the subject from her own point of view, 
and supply the great educational need that 
has been so long recognized and deplored. 
The new departure of higher female educa- 
tion should unquestionably be from the re- 
sults of the medical profession. We believe 
that physicians have by no means yet taken 
the share in general education that the inter- 
ests of society require ; but when the mental 
cultivation of women is to become systematic, 
and they have their own higher institutions, 
the agency of physicians will be indispensa- 
ble." A necessary and preparatory con- 
dition for the building of the best possible 
brain out of the female organization is to 
diffuse through the community a knowledge 
of the physiology of woman. For this, as 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 29 

well as for other purposes, there should be a 
class of intelhgent and well-educated female 
physicians, who, instructed in the peculiari- 
ties and physiological needs of the female 
constitution, would have exceptional oppor- 
tunities for spreading among their own sex 
sound and rational views of female develop- 
ment. 

A wise and appropriate system of educa- 
tion, in its effort to build a brain either for 
the male or the female organization, will 
endeavor to aid and imitate the process by 
which Nature performs the same task. Here- 
in physiology can render infinite service to 
education, — a service that the latter cannot 
afford to refuse. 

It is impossible, within the limits of this 
paper, to give even an outline of the won- 
derful process by which that delicate and 
marvellous engine, the human brain, is built 
up, — an engine which is only a few inches 
in diameter, whose weight, on an average, 
is only about forty-nine ounces, which con- 
tains cells and fibres counted by hundreds 



30 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

of millions ; cells and fibres that vary in 
thickness from one-millionth (i,o-o"o,oTo) ^^ 
one-three-hundredth (3^ o") ^^ ^^ inch, — an 
engine, every square inch of whose gray 
matter affords substrata for the evolution 
of at least eight thousand registered and 
separate ideas ; substrata in the whole brain 
for evolving and registering tens of millions 
of them, besides the power of recalling 
them under appropriate stimulus, — an en- 
gine, parts of which are sensitive to innu- 
merable vibrations in a second,* — an engine 
that transmits sensation, emotion, thought, 
and volition, by distinct fibres, whose time- 
working has been ingeniously measured to 
fractions of a second, — an engine, a mech- 
anism, that can accomplish this, and greater 
wonders still, without conscious friction, pain, 
or disturbance, if it is only properly built, 



* "We "believe tlie statements that the sensation of 
violet is produced by the striking of the ethereal waves 
against the retina more than seven hundred billions of 
times in a second," &c. — George Heitry Lewes : Proh- 
lems of Life and Mind, p. 21. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 31 

and its working not interfered with.* Not 
even an outline can be given here of the 
curious process by which Nature builds this 
mechanism of inconceivable delicacy and 
power. Only a few salient points can be 
dwelt upon, that may serve as hints for the 
educator's guidance ; and these can be pre- 
sented only in the most general way. 

I once asked a successful merchant and 
manufacturer, who had accumulated a large 
fortune, how he managed to make money 
at a time when all others who were engaged 
in the same business were losing it. He 
replied, that he had practically learned every 
detail and branch of his business so thor- 
oughly, that he could at any time, if neces- 
sary, take the place, and perform the special 
work, of any of his workmen. In one and 



* The reader who desires to consult authorities for 
these statements is referred to Mind and Body, by Alex- 
ander Bain ; Helmholz ; O. W. Holmes, Op. Cit, ; Mind 
and Brain, by T. Laycock, M.D. ; Mental Physiology, 
Dy W. B. Oarpenter, M.D. ; Body and JVIind, by Heni-y 
Maudsley, M.D. 



32 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

a most important sense, lie was made by and 
out of liis business. His efforts to practically 
learn every detail had developed him. Sup- 
pose his business branched into one hundred 
different directions, terminating in one hun- 
dred different sorts of labor, each sort of 
labor affording occupation for one or more 
workmen. In becoming acquainted with 
each of these hundred details, and in super- 
vising the workmen that wrought them out, 
he acquired a knowledge which no other 
experience or education could give him. So 
far he was made out of his business, devel- 
oped by it. If, in his preparatory training, 
he had learned only ninety, or eighty, or fifty 
of the branches of his business, he would 
have been, pro tanto^ less developed. His 
business consisted of three great departments, 
— manufacturing, exporting, and importing. 
The management of these reflected itself 
back upon his development and character. 
If he had neglected, or not acquainted him- 
self with, one of these departments, — export- 
ing, for example, — he would have been so 



TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 33 

much the less developed : he would have 
lost the special knowledge and training that 
an acquaintance with the exporting part of 
his business would have given him. This 
loss would, of course, be proportionately 
greater than that resulting from inattention 
to a single one of the hundred details 
which entered into the great whole of his 
business. 

Observe, that here are two distinct things 
which are not to be confounded. One is the 
growth or development of the man by reason 
of the special effort, training, and knowledge, 
which came from learning every detail of his 
business, as well as from managing the whole ; 
and the other is the character and amount 
of mental force thus developed. One is the 
process of development: the other is the 
result attained. One is the re-acting of the 
business on the man : the other is the mer- 
chant developed by the re-action. If while 
my mercantile friend was learning his busi- 
ness, getting this part of his education, he 
had omitted to become acquainted with a 



34 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

single detail, he would have developed just 
so much less mercantile power: he would 
have become just so much less of a merchant 
or manufacturer. When the power was 
acquired, he could exert or spend it in any 
direction he chose. First, there was growth, 
the force for which was supplied from a 
hundred sources ; and, secondly, there was 
a power which was grown. 

One other observation is important in this 
connection. We have supposed that a hun- 
dred details composed the body of this man's 
business. If some or all of the details had 
been different, his kind of growth would 
have been different, though it might have re- 
sulted in giving him equal power. An omis- 
sion of one or more of the details, or a change 
of one or more of the details, would have 
yieMed a different result. There is a different 
quality in the brain, grown by different call- 
ings, — as banking, manufacturing, and agri- 
culture, — and a separate flavor to the resulting 
character. 

This illustration presents in a rough way 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 35 

some notion of Nature's method of brain- 
building. The brain is the axis, or central 
organ, of the body, which, by internuncial 
fibres, — telegraphic wires, — is connected 
with innumerable small centres called ganglia, 
and with every part of the system. The 
ganglia, or separate centres of nervous power, 
act more or less automatically, but are 
responsible to, and in constant communica- 
tion with, the brain. Calling our mercantile 
friend the brain, his workmen the ganglia, 
his business the labor of the human organi- 
zation, and we shall get a notion of Nature's 
way of educating, — that is, building a brain, 
— sufficiently accurate for our present pur- 
pose. Just as the merchant grew out of his 
business by becoming acquainted with and 
supervising every detail of it, so the brain 
grows by taking part in and supervising the 
growth and function of every organ. If a 
single organ is wanting, or a single function 
not performed, just so much less brain devel- 
opment results. 



36 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

"Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; 
Break but one 
Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar 
Through all will run," * 

Just as the mercliant, by liis practical ac- 
quaintance with eyery detail of his business, 
was able to manage his workmen better, and 
obtain a better total result, than his com- 
petitors, and was also himself a more fully 
developed man in consequence ; so the 
brain, which has a practical acquaintance 
with the working of every ganglion and 
function, gets a better total result out of 
the body than other brains do, and is also 
itself a better brain. As in the case of the 
merchant, we recognized his business-growth 
as one fact, and the result attained as another 
and distinct fact ; so, in the case of the brain, 
there are two distinct matters : one is the 
development of the brain by reason of its 
special connection with all the organs and 
functions of the body ; and the other is the 
brain thus developed : one is the progressive 

* Whittier : My Soul and L 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 37 

development; and the other is the result. 
As the merchant, after he was made one by 
Ills business-training, could direct his ener- 
gies in any direction ; so the brain, after it is 
developed, can have its force turned in what- 
ever direction volition may elect. Once 
more : our mercantile friend had learned his 
business so well, that he could, when neces- 
sary, replace any of his workmen, and perform 
any workman's labor. Physiologists tell us, 
that the connection between the brain and 
the rest of the nervous system — such as the 
sympathetic ganglia, for instance — is so in- 
timate, that, if surgeons could make the 
anatomical transposition, the brain would take 
the place, and perform the labor, of other 
parts ; and, conversely, other parts that of 
the brain.* 

* " The physiological fact first enunciated by me, and 
now adopted by some teachers of great eminence (Vul- 
pian, Gavarret, &c.), that nervous tissue is identical through- 
out in property as in structure, has extremely important 
consequences. For, if the j)roperty be everywhere the 
same, all the functions into which that property enters 
must have a common identity." — George Henby 
Lewes : Op. Cit, p. 124. 



38 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

An apposite physiological illustration of 
Nature's process of building a brain, which 
we are trying to expose, may be found in the 
relation of the left brain to the right arm and 
right side of the body. A large majority of 
the world are right-handed and right-sided. 
The right hand and right arm are stronger, 
and more obedient to the will, than the left : 
so are the right leg and right foot. The 
cause of this right-sidedn€ss is to be found in 
the fact that the left brain is the largest. 
Most of the nerves leaving the brain decus- 
sate, and cross to opposite sides of the body. 
The right brain animates and controls the 
left arm and hand: the left brain animates 
and controls the right arm and hand. The 
left brain and right hand, the right brain and 
left hand, develop together. One aids the 
development of the other. The growth and 
action of the hand are as necessary to the de- 
velopment of the brain as the guidance and 
control of the brain are to the development of 
the hand. In congenital ambidexters, it is 
said there is less difference between the two 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 39 

halves of the brain than in right-handed peo- 
ple, and that in left-handed persons the dif- 
ference is less still. Which started first in 
the race of development is unknown ; and we 
need not inquire.* It is enough for our pur- 
pose to know, that, in some way, the growth, 
training, and employment of the hands of the 
young, aid in the building of a brain.f Cut 
off an arm in infancy, or compel it to in- 
action, and there will be less brain in adult 
life. An eminent hving physiologist^ has 
lately proposed the systematic training of 
the left hand in children, for the purpose 
of making the right side of the brain 
equal the left, and thus increasing the intel- 
lectual power of the race. What is true of 
the hand is true of all other organs of the 
body. They and the brain are developed by 



* Hyatt thinks the larger curreut of blood to the right 
arm is the cause. Others, like Gratiolet, think the left 
frontal convolutions started first. 

t "According to my thinking, it is the soul that makes 
organization, not organization, the soul." — F. H. Hedge. 

X Prof. 0. E. Brown-Sequard,*M.D. 



40 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

reciprocal action. An unused organ calls 
out less activity on the part of the brain 
tlian a used one. A misused organ may not 
only call out unhealthy activity of the brain, 
but often leads to pathological conditions of 
it. It is necessary for the building of a per- 
fect brain, that all the organs of the body 
should have their harmonious development 
and appropriate exercise. 

The eye and the ear, the hand and the foot, 
must be exercised and taught in our schools 
by appropriate labor, and books no longer re- 
garded as the only factor, if we would have 
fully-developed brains. " A small difference 
in the pigment of a sense," says Mr. Bain, " by 
giving that sense greater susceptibility, may 
determine the animal's preferences, tastes, 
and pursuits ; in other words, its whole des- 
tiny. In a human being, the circumstance 
of being acutely sensitive in one or two lead- 
ing senses may rule the entire charexter, 
intellectual and moral. The contrast be- 
tween a sensuous and a reflective nature 
might take its rise in the outworks of the 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. _ 41 

sense organs, apart even from the endow- 
ments of the brain. In this case, the ner- 
vous system would follow the cue, instead 
of taking the lead, of the special senses."* 
The organic functions, such as nutrition and 
reproduction, affect the nervous system in a 
way not less potent, and scarcely less per- 
ceptible, than the special senses. 

Recent investigations indicate, if they do 
not demonstrate, the parts of the brain that 
preside over special muscular movements, 
and that, consequently, are more or less de- 
veloped by such movements. t 

It is now important to go one step farther. 

* AiiEXANDER BAnsr : Mind and Body, p. 35, Am. ed. 

t *' Generally it may be stated, that tlie centres for tlie 
movements of the limbs are situated in the convolutions 
bounding the fissure of Kolando: viz., the ascending 
parietal convolution with its postero-parietal termination 
as far back as the parieto-occipital fissure, the ascending 
frontal, and posterior termination, of the superior frontal 
convolution. Centres for individual movements of the 
limbs, hands, and feet, are differentiated in these convolu- 
tions." — Dk. Fekreer : London Medical Record, March 
18, 1874, and American Journal Medical Science^ July, 1874, 
p. 27. 



42 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

We have hitherto dwelt upon the develop- 
ment of the brain as a resultant of its con- 
nection with the organs of the body, and 
supervision of their functions ; of its alli- 
ance with the workmen, and supervision of 
their duties. No allusion has been made to 
the development produced by specific brain- 
work, or cerebration, as a factor in brain- 
building. 

This factor is the most important of the 
whole. On account of its importance and 
efficiency, it is essential that its action 
should be comprehended, and its power phy- 
siologically guided. Cerebration, including 
provisionally in that term intellection, emo- 
tion, and voHtion, is the brain at work. It 
is brain-activity, brain-exercise, brain-labor. 
The technical work of the school and col- 
lege, or study, is cerebration. But study is 
not the whole of cerebration, any more than 
it is the whole of education. 

Appropriate exercise of an organ aids its de- 
velopment, and increases its power. Appro- 
priate locomotion strengthens the legs : so 



I 

THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 43 

does digestion the stomach ; and vision, the 
eye. The normal performance of a function 
strengthens and develops the organ that per- 
forms it. The brain is not only no exception 
to this law, but is an admirable illustration 
of it. Brain-exercise, that is, cerebration, 
strengthens and develops the brain. If 
quality as well as quantity is included in 
development, no limit can yet be assigned 
to the extent of the latter, and, conse- 
quently, no limit to the manifestations of 
intellectual and spiritual power that may 
pour through the braiii. I presume we have 
only an imperfect conception of what the 
human brain will yet attain to. Compared 
now as an instrument with what it will be 
ages hence, when both men and women are 
appropriately educated, when brains shall be 
built out of mascuhne and feminine organi- 
zations that have been appropriately trained, 
and from which hereditary evils have been 
eliminated, century after century, by the sur- 
vival of the fittest, — the brain of to-day, 
compared as an instrument with that brain 



44 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

of the future, fit for the use of a god, is as 
rude and imperfect as the lenses of two hun- 
dred years ago compared with the micro- 
scopes of the present day. It is the duty of 
our systems of education to evolve such 
brains. 

Study and student-work aid this evolution ; 
but, as we have seen, they are not the only 
factors of brain-building. Cerebration is 
brain-exercise ; and brain-exercise strengthens 
and develops the brain. But the brain is 
evolved from the organization ; and, unless 
the latter is normal, the evolution is im- 
perfect. Moreover, physiology informs us, 
that conscious, or, more properly speaking, 
volitional cerebration should not be at- 
tempted too early in life. In Nature's order, 
the nervous system of an individual is the 
last to attain its full development ; and, of the 
nervous system, the cerebral ganglia reach 
maturity later than any other part. Obvi- 
ously the latter should not be put to work 
till they are capable of labor. Without 
exercise, an organ wiU attain little or no 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 45 

development: excessive or premature exer- 
cise will monstrously develop or abort it, — in 
either case to the injury of the rest of the 
organism. What Goethe said of an indi- 
vidual in relation to the community is true 
of an organ in relation to the organism : — 

"For, as I know, lie injures himself who is singly 
Devoted, 
When for the common cause the whole are not 
"Working together." * 

If a hundred boys or girls were educated 
from the age of three to that of sixteen as 
John Stuart Mill was, I am certain, that 
while a few might escape as he did, and attain 
marvellous brain-power, the majority would 
end in permanent invalidism, imbecility, or 
premature death. It is as unphysiological, 
and fraught with danger, to make the brain 
work over books before its tissue is ready for 
that sort of cerebration, as to coax a baby to 
stand before the bones of its legs are stiff 
enough to hold up the body. 

* Hermann and Dorothea, Miss Frothingham's Transla- 
tion, p. 60. 



46 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. I 

It should not be forgotten that the super- 
vision by the brain of the various organs of 
the body is brain-exercise, although we, that 
is, the ego^ may not be conscious of it. In- 
deed, this fact hes at the foundation of all 
the previous argument. The brain, receiving 
its nourishment from the blood, grows by 
exercise. But there are two kinds of brain- 
exercise, — one conscious, the other uncon- 
scious; one the exercise of the brain in 
supervising the organization, the other the 
exercise of the brain in cerebration. Both 
are necessary to the building of a brain. 
Neither is competent to the work alone. 
Our schools have taken conscious cerebra- 
tion in charge, and pushed it to a dangerous 
extreme. They have paid very little atten- 
tion to the other factor. 

It may be and has been urged that one of 
these factors — the unconscious exercise of the 
brain in supervising the organization — should 
be left out of any system of education, be- 
cause it can be safely intrusted to the control 
of instinct. This is a dangerous fallacy. In- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 47 

stinct, it is true, will perpetuate the race ; but 
it will only perpetuate a race of animals. 
Instinct never rises to the plane of reason : 
it has no notion of progress : it will preserve 
the race, and that is all: it cares nothing 
for the fittest and best. With terrible, sav- 
age, and irresistible earnestness and will, 
regardless of whatever nobility or beauty 
may be killed by it, instinct goes straight to 
its object, — the conservation of the race. If 
our civilization turns over the care of the 
organization to this relentless power, there 
will be no hope of progress in the future. 
Reason alone is capable of solving the two 
problems, — of securing the highest develop- 
ment of the individual and the perpetuation 
of the fittest. Reason, therefore, must be the 
architect of the brain. 

It should not be inferred from this state- 
ment, that the attention of growing boys and 
girls ought to be forced upon their organs 
and functions. Such a course would be as 
pregnant of evil as the opposite extreme of 
laisser aller. One whose brain ever watches 



48 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

his stomach is sure to generate a worse dys- 
pepsia there than ever hot bread or nnnatu- 
ral luncheons caused. But reason, led by 
physiology and experience, should compel 
sufficient attention to the stomach to insure 
appropriate nourishment and painless diges- 
tion. In Hke JX:anner should every part of 
the organization be treated. No organ, or 
function, or system of organs, whether sexu- 
al, nutritive, or nervous, should be regarded 
as mean, or unworthy of notice, and so re- 
mitted to the brutal control of instinct. An 
appropriate education will include them all 
within its purview, and, by judicious man- 
agement, will make them all, in their degree, 
contribute to the building of a brain, and, by 
so doing, assure to the cerebral ganglia the 
control of them all. 

If this is not done, and education attends 
only to the single factor of cerebration, em- 
ploying in its work only mathematics, the 
humanities, and the like, the organization is 
sure to go astray, and, by running into all 
sorts of errors, diseases, and deformities, to 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 49 

compel an attention which organs that have 
had appropriate care never require. The 
statesman engrossed with social and political 
problems, or the scholar rapt in thought, may 
fancy that his metatarsal joints have little 
connection with his brain ; but let gout make 
one of them blush, and both statesman and 
scholar will be convinced that the brain has 
a common interest with its farthest extremity. 
And this community of interest teaches that 
the unnoticed growing and proper use of a 
toe contribute a quota, however small, to the 
building of a brain. Mr. Lecky says, "that 
harmonious, sustained manhood, without dis- 
proportion, or anomaly, or eccentricity, — 
that godlike type in which the same divine 
energy seems to thrill with equal force 
through every faculty of mind and body; 
the majesty of a single power never deran- 
ging the balance, or impairing the symmetry 
of the whole, — was probably more keenly 
appreciated and more frequently exhibited 
in ancient Greece than in any succeeding 



50 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

civilization." * In no respect should a Chris- 
tian fall below a heathen civilization. 

We learn, from these physiological consid- 
erations, that the method by which Nature 
constructs a brain is the same for the two 
sexes. In both, the brain is evolved from 
the organization. In both, all the organs of 
the body are connected with the brain by 
inter-nuncial fibres. In both, the brain, by 
means of these inter-nuncial fibres, super- 
vises the separate and united functions of 
the organs, and co-ordinates and controls 
their action. In both, this supervision and 
control is an essential factor in building a 
brain. In both, the normal development of 
an organ aids the normal growth of the 
brain, and the abnormal growth of an organ 
reflects its error back upon the brain. In 
both, the brain is favorably or unfavorably 
affected by the normal or abnormal per- 
formance of all the functions. In both, the 
highest development of the cerebra is con- 

* History of Eationalism in Europe, vol. iL p. 351. 



TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 51 

tingent upon, and, in point of time, secondary 
to, the normal development of the rest of 
the brain. In both, brain-exercise, or cere- 
bration, such as study and intellectual ac- 
tivity, develop the brain, and throw down 
upon all the inferior organs a healthy and 
conservative influence. The parallel is com- 
plete between the sexes. The method that 
builds a man's builds also a woman's brain. 
But this identity of method in cerebral ar- 
chitecture, which requires that every organ 
and function in both sexes should have 
appropriate development and exercise, as a 
part of brain-building, implies, or rather ne- 
cessitates, a difference in education between 
the sexes, just so far as there is a difference 
in organization between them, and no farther. 
Identical education of the sexes is in the last 
analysis equivalent to an unjust discrimina- 
tion between thein : their appropriate and 
consequently different education is equivalent 
to the same method of brain-building. The 
object of education for the sexes is the same. 
The physiological i>rinciple which should 



52 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

guide their education — that is, the appropri- 
ate development of the whole organization, so 
as to evolve the best brain — is the same. The 
application of this principle to home, social, 
and school life, demands diversity of manage- 
ment, — the same law, but diversity of appli- 
cation. 

The only difference between the sexes is 
sex ; but this difference is radical and funda- 
mental, and expresses itself in radical and 
fundamental differences of organization, that 
extend from the lowest to the highest forms 
of life. Progress is impossible without accept- 
ing and respecting difference of sex. That it 
is physiologically possible to diminish it by an 
education arranged for that end, no physiolo- 
gist can doubt ; nor can it be doubted that 
identical methods of educating the sexes, 
such as prevail in many of our schools, tend 
that way. One result of a school-system 
animated by such methods is to make a very 
poor kind of men out of women, and a 
very poor kind of women out of men. For-" 
tunate for the Republic, if no illustrations of 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 53 

the truth of this remark could be found 
within its borders. 

The best quality, noblest power, and su- 
preme beauty of the two sexes, grow out of 
their dissimilarity, not out of their identity. 
Differentiation is Nature's method of ascent. 
We should cultivate the difference of the 
sexes, not try to hide or abolish it. When a 
gardener seeks to produce the best possible 
apple or peach, he selects one whose beauty 
or flavor is desirable, and cultivates the se- 
lected difference. Nature has selected dif- 
ference of sex by which to give humanity its 
choicest beauty and quality. The perfection 
of one sex is unattainable by the other, and 
at present is rarely comprehended by the 
other. Each loves and reverences in the 
other what it cannot grasp itseK, and despises 
any imitation. Let education_ respect and 
cultivate Nature's selected difference. 

The first step in the practical apphcation 
of these principles is to heed the voice that 
fell on Peter's ear, and echoes still in ours, 
bidding us call nothing common or unclean 



54 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

that bears a divine stamp. The whole organi- 
zation, and all its functions, must be lifted 
above the low plane of animal instinct, and 
confided to the charge of reason. Sex and 
its functions must be recognized as factors in 
education, as aids in brain-building. Some- 
thing has been done in this direction by the 
discussions of the past year in Europe and 
this country upon the periodicity of the fe- 
male constitution. The secrecy and mys- 
tery that rested, like an incubus or evil 
spell, upon it, have been wrenched from our 
American civilization and education, and will 
never be put on again. 

The next step, so far as girls are concerned, 
is to acquire a complete notion of the value 
of periodicity as an element in female edu- 
cation. This must be done by ascertaining 
the evil that follows a disregard of it, and 
the good that follows its normal action. 
When this has been accomplished, it will be 
easy to assign to periodicity its proper posi- 
tion among the other factors — such as nutri- 
tion, ventilation, cerebration, and the hke — ■ 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 55 

that belong to education, and contribute to 
the building of a brain. 

It is obvious that this factor must be 
studied with regard to woman alone ; for 
there is nothing like it in the male consti- 
tution. 

The evils that man incurs from a disregard 
of his peculiar organization are not the same 
as those that beset the path of woman ; but 
they are not less terrible than hers. In tliis 
regard, his education must be equally circum- 
spect, but very different. When we consider 
the diseases, breeding rottenness in the flesh 
and bones, degenerations of the brain, imbe- 
cility, impotence, and premature death, with 
which Nature punishes his errors of passion 
and sensuahty, we cannot justly say, that, 
even so far as sex is concerned, woman is 
unfairly weighted for the race of life in com- 
parison with him. An appropriate education 
will recognize the special differences, guard 
against the special dangers, and obtain the 
special benefits that spring from sex. 

Having recognized periodicity as a factor 



66 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 



1 



in the education of girls, and having acquired 
some notion of the evils which a neglect of 
it may cause, the next step is to assign to it 
its rightful position as an agent, or force, 
in the building of a brain. 

The importance of its position cannot be 
doubted ; for it represents not only an essen- 
tial organ, but an essential system of organs, 
in the female organism. It is impossible and 
unnecessary to determine which of the three 
great divisions of the organization — the nu- 
tritive, the reproductive, and the nervous — 
is the most important. It is enough to know 
that the consensus of all is necessary to 
the development of each, and equally the 
development of each, to the evolution and 
perfecting of the whole. A normal periodi- 
cal action represents, as a rule, the integrity 
and proper management of the apparatus, one 
of whose functions it is, as much as normal 
digestion represents the integrity and proper 
management of the nutritive apparatus. Its 
importance, then, comes chiefly from its rep- 
resentative character. It represents a system 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 57 

of organs and functions essential to the de- 
velopment of the individual and of the race, 
- — essential to the building of every woman's 
individual brain, and to the transmission of 
the accumulated brain-power of the past. 
Whether we like it or not, we must accept 
the fact, men and women both, and act upon 
it, that the brain cannot attain its best de- 
velopment, except through the development 
of the body. "I do not wish to be called a 
body, or treated as an animal," said a bright 
woman. Her aspiration was just ; but, for its 
realization, it is necessary that the animal and 
the body out of which the woman is built 
should be made to contribute their share to 
the building of her brain. When that is 
built, its grandeur and beauty and power 
will conceal and transfigure the body. Wo- 
men have been so long called angels by 
flatterers, and painted with wings by artists, 
and sung as goddesses by poets, that some 
of them are indignant when told that they 
Lave bodies. It is to be hoped that men 
and women will be angels yet, and that the 



58 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 



^ 



flatterers, artists, and poets are prophets in 
disguise ; but, if this is to be the case, we 
may be sure that the iter ad astra is not 
over despised, mismanaged, and diseased 
bodies, but out of harmoniously-developed, 
acknowledged, and transfigured ones.* 

The practical application of these prin- 
ciples to education is less difficult than 
appears at first thought. Much, probably 
the larger part, of the difficulty will disap- 
pear as soon as our schools and social order 
recognize periodicity as a factor in brain- 
building and education. After this is recog- 
nized, experience will be the best guide in 
solving all other difficulties ; and the solution 

* The animal part of man is thiis observed to be, in a 
measure, independent of the human, and may maintain a 
separate existence. The characteristically human part of 
his organization, however, is not thus independent of the 
animal organs, but is united to them by an inseparable 
bond. The cerebrum is the flower of organic creation, 
its supreme coronation. Its vital integrity is main- 
tained by the corporeal system. The radicle may live 
and flourish independent of the flower; but, if the flower 
be disconnected from the radicle, it speedily dies." — 
D. A. GoKTON, M.D. : Principles of Mental Hygiene^ p. 19. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 59 

must be worked out chiefly by women them- 
selves. Fortunately, Nature, though an un- 
placable enemy, is the kindest of friends. 
Obedience to her smooths every pathway. 
Physiology assures the teacher and the home 
that Nature only requires in this direction the 
normal performance of the function. What- 
ever does not interfere with its normal per- 
formance is admissible. So susceptible is it of 
management in youth, that cerebration alone 
will sometimes guide it. I have seen cases 
in which the prescription of study — mental 
work — alone was enough to turn its abnormal 
into its normal performance ; and other cases 
precisely the reverse, in which study, emotion, 
or other mental excitement, especially at the 
juncture referred to, so checked or increased 
it as to insure disease and threaten life. 
Surely a function that is so sensitive and 
ductile during the age of development, and, 
if then mismanaged, so difficult of control in 
later years, and that represents such an 
important part of the female organization, 
should be reasonably guided and managed. 



60 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

Like every other function, its normal per- 
formance not only strengthens the organs 
represented by it, but the system at large ; 
so that special and general growth and power 
are gained by its appropriate management. 
It should not be forgotten, in this connec- 
tion, that the pain (dysmenorrhoea) by which 
Nature so often and so severely punishes a 
neglect of this function uses up, that is, 
spends, an amount of nerve-force in exact 
proportion to the pain endured ; and that 
this nerve-force represents power withdrawn 
from the brain. If proper methods of edu- 
cation are devised which will not develop 
pain, there will be greater nerve-force at 
command for brain-work in adult life. 

Suppose education, instead of standing, as 
it generally does with us, for schooling 
alone, stood, as it ought to do, for all appro- 
priate training, we might divide it into the 
four divisions, of physical education, or exer- 
cise : social education, or society ; domestic 
educixtion, or home life ; and technical edu- 
cation, or study. If not more than five 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 61 

hours * a day, or, including music, six hours a 
day, were devoted to studying, both in school 
and out, leaving the rest of the time for 
other purposes, we should probably find that 
Nature's normal remission of education, her 
" Sunday of monthly rest," would take some- 
thing ike the following order, — at least, 

* "Wliile it is easy oftentimes to see that this or that 
person is overtasking his powers, it is impossible to lay 
down any general rule on the subject, that would not re- 
quire too much of some, and too little of others. In youth 
and early manhood, especially if the constitution is de- 
ficient in vigor, there woidd be danger from a degree of 
application that might be safe enough at a later period, 
when the brain has become hardened by age and regular 
labor. So, too, habits of active physical exercise will en- 
able a man to accomplish an amount of intellectual labor 
that would ^^tterly break down one of sedentary habits. 
After making all due allowance for these differences, I 
think we may say that few can exceed six hours a day of 
close mental application without seriously endangering the 
health of the brain ; while, for most persons, a not unrea- 
sonable degree of prudence would prescribe a much 
shorter period" (Isaac Hay, M.D. : Mental Hygiene, pp 
110, 111). The Italics are the author's. The above state- 
ment evidently refers to boys and men. It is undoubtedly 
true of them ; but it applies to girls during the epoch of 
development with much greater force than it does to boys 



62 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

such has been my observation of it, — all 
girls would require a periodical remission of 
variable lengthy from the labor of physical 
education^ such as gymnastics, long walks, 
and the like; and also all would require a 
remission from the labor of social education, 
such as dancing, visiting, and similar offices. 
The other two departments of education, 
domestic and technical, would only be in- 
terfered with in exceptional cases ; but, 
in these exceptional cases, the remission is 
of vital importance to the individuals them- 
selves, and the school must provide for it, or 
be directly responsible for lifelong invalid- 
ism, possible sterility, and death. If our 
schools continue to require seven^ eighty and 
nine hours of daily study, including in this 
estimate out-of-school study, there should be 
a periodical intermission for female pupils of 
school as well as of physical and social education. 
The influences of school and social life are so 
interwoven, that it is difficult to separate 
them. There is an undoubted tyranny of 
fashion over them both, to which many yield 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 63 

an unquestioning and often a willing obedi- 
ence. There is also a tyranny of the school 
over the family and social life, which presses 
lightly on boys, but heavily on girls. A 
more flexible school system will abolish the 
tyranny of the school over the family ; and a 
nobler civihzation, that of fashion over social 
life. 

The stimulus of emulation, of constant, 
daily competitive work, affects the two sexes 
differently during the epoch of develop- 
ment. A boy is less susceptible to this 
stimulus at that time than a girl; so that 
when the same stimulus is applied to the two 
sexes, at the same time and in the same way, 
if enough of it is applied to keep a boy well 
up, it is a physiological injury to a girl ; if 
only enough is applied to keep her properly 
at work, the result is a physiological injury 
to him. 

These and many other matters of detail, 
including co-education, must be determined 
by experience. Physiology is concerned 
only with the principles of healthy develop- 



64 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

ment, which, within their range, must guide 
the education of both sexes. Physiology 
demands an appropriate education for both, 
and condemns the effort, which, by consigning 
both to an identical education, would abolish 
Nature's process of differentiation, and pro- 
duce identical sexual development and the 
end of the race. Brains of highest worth 
must be built by an educational process that 
leaves men potential fathers, and women 
potential mothers. Sensuality must not be 
allowed to make animals of one sex, nor 
ill-regulated cerebration to unsex the other. 

An eminent English physiological authority 
has recently defended the thesis, that, because 
there is sex in mind, there must be sex in 
education.* I should prefer to alter the terms 
of the statement, and say, that, because there 
is sex in body, there must be sex in mind, and 
sex in education. When this is acknowledged, 
and one of Nature's vital factors in brain-build- 
ing, that has been so long refused a place in oui 

* Henky Maudsley, M.D. : Fortnightly Review, April 
1874. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 65 

training of girls, is added to the other factors 
of education, and entered in the rubric of the 
schools, we may hope for brains of the largest 
development and finest quahty. When that 
time arrives, we may hope for both sexes that 
identical will give place to appropriate edu- 
cation ; that brains built out of the body and 
by the body, as well as out of books and by 
books, will crown and control every organ 
and function; that sex will be made sub- 
servient, not to passion, but to reason ; and 
thus shall not only the grasp of our race be 
permanently assured upon this Western 
world, but the highest development of the 
individual, the noblest manhood and the 
loftiest womanhood, be assured here like- 
wise. 

6 



AN ERROR IN FEMALE BUILDING. 



PART II. 

AN EEROR IN FEMALE BUILDING. 

"Wie soil man a^er diesem Uebelstande, dem Gegen- 
satze zwisclien Schnl- und Naturgesetze abhelfen? Eins 
vonbeideu muss nachgelbeii! Das Naturgesetz is niclit 
willkurlicli, es berulit auf ewigen Dictaten: das Scbul- 
gesetz aber ist ein willkiirliches, ron Menschen gemaclites, 
zeitliches ; es m.uss sicb dem. Naturgesetze unterwerf en. — 
Schul-DidtetiJc, p. 186. 

By a recent essay,* carefully limited to a 
discussion of the single factor of periodicity 
in its relation to the education of girls, and 
only to the pathological side of that factor, or 
the evils which follow a disregard of it, I hoped 
to call the attention of teachers and the com- 
munity to this concealed and essential ele- 
ment. This hope has been fulfilled. Abun- 
dant evidence has appeared, not only of the 
interest taken in the subject of the relation 
of sex to education, but of a general convic- 



* Sex in Education. ' 

69 



70 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

tion of its great importance ; and numerous 
data have been furnished by observers in 
different parts of the country, which are of 
great value in determining the relation of 
periodicity to the other factors of education. 
Like the essay referred to, many of these 
data show only the evils which a neglect of 
periodicity generates ; but these evils indi- 
cate and measure the infinite good that would 
follow a normal management of it. They 
should be fully comprehended, so as to be 
avoided. Like lighthouses along the coast, 
that warn the mariner of rocks and quick- 
sands, a knowledge of them signals dangers 
that threaten to shipwreck our race in this 
Western hemisphere. 

Some of the following statements have 
already appeared in the public journals. 
Most of them have been sent to me privately, 
without solicitation, and coupled with a per- 
mission to publish them, if their pubhcation 
was deemed desirable. They come from a 
variety of sources, and are the more valuable 
on that account. A large number have been 



TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 71 

furnished by women who have themselves 
suffered, or whose daughters have suffered, 
from the inattention of our schools to the 
periodicity of the female constitution. The 
number and size of all the communications 
that. I have received upon this subject would 
form a portly volume. The few that are 
herewith pubhshed concern especially the 
relation of sex to education, and are pre- 
sented as a contribution to educational and 
social science. It will be observed that all 
of them are the result of the personal obser- 
vation of the writers who report them. They 
fall naturally into three classes, — 1st, Those 
from public documents, like the Report of 
the State Board of Health of Massachusetts ; 
2d, Those from parents and school-teachers, 
who approach the subject from a parent's or 
teacher's point of view ; and, 3d, Those from 
physicians, who look at it from a physiolo- 
gical standpoint. 

1st, Public Investigations. — In the Fifth 
Annual Report of the State Board of Health 
of Massachusetts, which appeared January, 



72 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

1874, there is an article on " School Hygiene," 
by Dr. Frederick Winsor of Winchester. It 
was prepared by direction of the Board. As 
one method of obtaining data with regard 
to the hygienic condition of the schools of 
Massachusetts, the Board sent a Circular to 
teachers, physicians, and others in the State, 
soliciting replies to a series of questions, of 
which the two first were these : — 

"1. Is one sex more liable than the other to suffer in 
health from attendance on school? 

"2. Does the advent of puberty increase this lia- 
bility? " 

Replies were received from one hundred 
and sixty persons, of whom one hundred and 
fifteen are stated to be physicians ; nineteen, 
physicians and members of school commit- 
tees ; fourteen, teachers of experience ; and 
six, superintendents of schools. The Circular 
of the Board requested that all the replies 
should be " based on personal observation." 
The result of this inquiry, so far as it con- 
cerns the relation of sex to education, may be 
gathered by looking over the following ex- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 73 

tract from the Report, whicli also presents the 
conclusion that Dr. Winsor reached upon the 
subject we are considering : — 

" Question 1. — Is one sex more liable than the other to 
suffer in health from attendance on school?" 

Answered substantially as follows : — 

" Females more liable than males," by 109 

"Males more liable than females," by 1 

" Both ahke liable," by 31 

" Neither is in danger," by 4 

" Not in district schools," by 1 
" Not if both sexes exercise alike in the open air," 

hy 1 

" Unable to answer," by 6 

One correspondent says, " Girls in the pro- 
portion of two to one ; " another, " During 
forty years' practice in the country, I recol- 
lect but one instance of a male who has 
suffered ; while I can recall many instances 
of females." 

QUOTATIONS FEOM COEEESPONDENTS. 

118. " The female scholars are more sus- 
ceptible to emotional influences ; and if there 
be stimuli in a school, appealing to pride and 



74 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

vanity, they are so emulous as to inJTire 
themselves. 

"This is the source of most of the injury 
suffered by the scholars in most schools." 

80. " Beyond doubt, the girls, from the 
fact that they are girls, are more liable to 
svffer than boys. In my own experience 
with both sexes, I found this excess of lia- 
bility to be very manifest ; and I governed 
my methods accordingly, keeping limitation 
in abeyance with them, and moderating 
brain-work, and supervisiag physical exer- 
cises. 

" At certain periods, I think that study, 
with girls, should wliolly cease for some days. 
Any one who has taught boys and girls — 
in separate schools, I mean — must have 
noticed the greater proportionate irregularity 
of attendance by the latter ; and, as a parent, 
he would readily know the reason, and know 
the necessity of cessation from work. 

" I refer to girls between twelve and 
twenty years of age." 

lis. "While pleas for lenity to boys, on 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 75 

account of feeble health, are rare, they are a 
common thing in connection with the girls." 
102. " My pupils were all girls. I gave 
them more variety of study, and less hard 
labor, than boys can bear." 

Many others of the 109 express themselves 
in terms equally strong ; some of whom will 
be quoted elsewhere. 

" Question 2. — Poes the advent of puberty increase this 
liability?" 

Answered substantially as follows : — 

"Yes," by 120 

"No," by 12 

"Uncertain," by 9 

Of those who answer, " Yes," many add, 
" for girls ; " and it is evident that nearly all 
have the same limitation in mind. 

Two call attention to the important fact, 
that, at the time of the second dentition, 
children are pecuharly liable to be injuriously 
affected. It is a fact that many boys, espe- 
cially those of rapid growth, need a particu- 



76 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

larly careful hygienic watch at the advent of 
puberty. 

QUOTATIONS FEOM COERESPONDEKTS. 

148. " This baleful result becomes very 
strikingly manifested as the girls approach 
the age of puberty. Under the abnormal 
conditions of the physical system produced 
by this cause, not only do the more emulous 
and studious girls suffer from the study 
which they evidently ought to intermit, but 
the ordinary and habitual task-work neces- 
sary to keep abreast of the studies is far 
too severe a draught on many constitutions. 
Not a class passes through our high schools 
of which some of the girls are not compelled 
to discontinue a part or all of their studies, 
for a time, on this account ; and, not unfre- 
quently, they cease altogether their connec- 
tion with the school, too feeble to venture a 
renewal of their studies. The teachers are 
watchful and considerate in this behalf ; but 
it is scarcely possible to individualize so as 
to guard against evil results. Little or 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 77 

nothing of all this is noticeable in regard to 
boys." 

80. " It is precisely that advent, and its 
consequent peculiarity with girls especially, 
to which I refer ; and any trifling, or neglect 
of care, in regard to it, is all but unpardona- 
ble. With boys the case, under my expe- 
rience, was wholly different. If they respect 
and leave innocent God's sacred means of 
the physical life of our race, their own physi- 
cal strength will go on increasing, and they 
will need no other recreative unbending than 
what they will get from the usual manly ex- 
ercises of our properly-spent vacations ; or, 
under a better system than ours, from union 
of technic hand-work with mental study." 

111. " Girls suffer more than boys from 
attendance at school. Were, however, the 
habits of the two sexes the same in regard 
to out-door play and exercise, there would 
probably be no difference between the power 
of resistance in one and the other sex till the 
approach of puberty. As a girl draws near 
this period, menstruates, and becomes capa- 



78 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

ble of child-bearing, the school discipline 
and work must bend to her bodily needs in 
a manner not required by boys. Her men- 
strual week (one-fourth of her time, or near- 
ly that) must be respected. During these 
days, her mental powers are easily over- 
strained. The depressing influence of con- 
finement in the schoolroom, long-continued 
standing, or even sitting, do her bodily harm. 
The neglect of these demands of her system, 
as that of an intended breeder and nurser of 
men and women, the effort to treat her as 
though she were a boy, will, in a large 
minority of instances, do unmistaken harm 
to those concerned, and, eventually, to the 
whole community. Could the custom of 
keeping girls between the ages of thirteen 
years and nineteen out of school, and at 
moderate rest, during the days of menstrua- 
tion, become established among us, a certain 
number might suffer restraint not absolutely 
demanded ; but the general result would be 
an incalculable gain to the health, present 
and prospective, of the inhabitants of this 
Commonwealth. ' ' 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 79 

"It is the opinion of more than seven-tenths 
of the correspondents, that girls are more 
liable than boys to be injured in health in 
our schools ; and, of eighty -seven-hundredtlis^ 
that this liability increases with the advent 
of puberty ; and, to support this opinion, 
detailed testimony might be quoted from all 
quarters, both from sources already accessible 
to the public and from manuscripts. 

"But it is unnecessary. This greater liabil- 
ity in the female is an established fact ; and 
our State and local school-boards should at 
once take steps to modify our system of edu- 
cation in accordance with the fact, however 
great may be the change required. Up to 
the thirteenth year, identical co-education is 
hygienically safe, with the proviso that we 
make a most cautious use of emulation in all 
its forms, since at no age is it as safe for girls 
as for boys. After the thirteenth year, girls 
should not be tasked or disciplined just as 
boys are. For them, such flexibility should 
be introduced into the school regime as shall 
fully recognize the feminine law of periodi- 



80 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

city, for want of which recognition our high 
and normal schools, and the first classes of 
our grammar schools, are injuring many, and 
endangering all their female scholars. Were 
it not that so small a proportion of our school 
children enter (in Boston, in 1870, 3J per 
cent), and so much smaller a proportion 
(scarcely one per cent in Boston) persevere 
in the high-school course, we should stand 
aghast at the extent of this mischief. As it 
is, it falls mainly on those whose school edu- 
cation is carried farthest, to whom we have 
been accustomed to point as the pride and 
flower of our common schools. And the 
numbers of this class are increasing in a pro- 
portion much greater than the general in- 
crease of school-attendance. In 1872, the 
increase of our school-attendance was 2,941, 
while the increase of scholars over fifteen 
years old was 1,238, — more than four-tenths 
of the whole increase. Seven-eighths of our 
teachers suffer from it, but would suffer far 
less, if they had not been under the same sys- 
tem during the formative period of hfe. That 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 81 

school-system which is in harmony with 
hj^giene will recognize not »only the law of 
periodicity, but the fact, that, throughout 
the whole time between the thirteenth and 
the nineteenth year, the female cannot, with 
impunity, bear the same mental strain as 
the male." 

The principle here insisted on involves 
a very great change in our school-methods, 
but by no means an unpossible change. Let 
once the necessity of it be widely felt, and 
the reform "will get itself made," as has 
been wisely said. It need not involve a great 
increase of absenteeism. 

In reply to a different question from the 
Board of Health than either of the two pre- 
viously quoted, a corresp»ondent, numbered 
148, says, — 

" It is, however, the nervous system of the 
girls which is affected by school-influences in 
a very peculiar and striking manner, far be- 
yond what occurs in the same connection 
with boys. Delicately sensitive in their or 



82 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

ganization, as compared with the boys, and 
quick to respond^ to appeals to their love of 
approbation, the studious girls are filled with 
eager emulation the moment that a prize is 
offered for their competition, or when the 
ordinary stimuli, active in every thoroughly 
earnest school, inspire to severe exertion. 
Their effort becomes painfully intense. They 
strain every nerve in their endeavors, a rest- 
less anxiety meanwhile morbidly preying 
upon and diminishing their strength. And 
in those localities where the principle of 
emulation is systematically and largely 
employed in the schools, where public 
examinations, exhibitions, festivals, medals, 
and other details of competitive machinery, 
are ceaselessly exerting a harassing influence, 
the effect upon the girls must be fearfully 
pernicious. Many a wreck of health must 
periodically occur, — yes, many a forfeiture 
of life itself." 

The third section of the Fifth Annual Re- 
port (1874) of the Bureau of Statistics of 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 83 

Labor of Massachusetts contains the follow- 
ing curious and interesting statements. The 
investigations reported by the Bureau are 
novel in their character; and the results 
obtained have a direct bearing upon the 
relation of sex to education, as well as to 
labor : — 

" The important consideration of the effects 
of labor upon young girls at pecuHar periods 
of life has escaped attention equally with 
that of their education at the same periods. 
The most excellent monograph of Prof. 
Clarke, recently published, has treated ably 
of the latter regard. 

" We must dissent, however, from his state- 
ment, as far too inclusive, that ' the female 
operative, of whatever sort, has, as a rule, 
passed through the first critical epoch of 
woman's life : she has got fairly by it.' 

"Actual investigation in this direction 
shows a very large per cent of employees in 
various factories and burdensome employ- 
ments, occupying the whole of the day, where 



84 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 



the average age of puberty has not been 
passed, when, certainly, the menstrual func- 
tion has not been well established. Certain 
investigations undertaken within the past 
year in regard to the effect of employments 
requiring a considerable expenditure of nerve- 
force for at least some period of the processes, 
have produced some interesting and curious 
results. An observation of females, varying 
in age from sixteen to forty, engaged in 
basket-making, a labor requiring wonderful 
rapidity of manipulation, showed, that in 
half a dozen new operatives placed upon the 
work in a well-ventilated, light, and cheerful 
room, — 

"1. Five lost in weight in the first week 
appreciably, the remaining one, a slower per- 
son, apparently not at all. 

" 2. The youngest lost the larger per cent 
of weight. 

" 3. Two — one sixteen, and another 
eighteen — experienced disturbance of the 
menstrual function in the first month of 
employ, though previously regular. 



1 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN, 85 

" 4. The slow person began to lose weight 
appreciably on the fourth week, when her 
motions had quickened. 

"5. The decrease in weight continued with 
all (though there was no diminution of appe- 
tite or general health specially noticeable) 
for from four to six weeks, when, the move- 
ments of the digits having become more me- 
chanical, it ceased, and the weight remained 
essentially unchanged for a few weeks, vary- 
ing with individuals, from one to three, when 
in four of the six it increased perceptibly, 
in the other two slightly. The operatives 
of this department state that a change in the 
shape of their work, requiring for a time 
more concentrated thought, will, if it occur 
at that juncture, effect sometimes a disturb- 
ance of the catamenial function. In all, 
familiarity with the ivork tends to remove the 
difficulty. From these and the other attach- 
ing circumstances, we have been led to con- 
clude that there is a direct effect of bodily 
•exertion, in females, upon the peculiar func- 
tion of the sex ; that this is greatest with the 



8Q THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 



1 



youngest ; that it is directly proportioned to 
the degree of mental activity involved, and 
is to be considered gravely in the regulation 
of mechanical pursuits employing such labor. 

" Information has been furnished us by a 
lady long in charge of the sewing-room of 
a large shoe-factory where foot-power was 
used exclusively, that, in general, she had 
arrived at the same conclusions. 

" The agent of one of our largest cotton- 
factories has investigated the same subject, 
and has formed the same conclusions in re- 
gard to young female operatives. A full 
statement of his careful and extended obser- 
vations is soon to appear. 

" The work of counting rattan strands, 
done at the manufactory of that material at 
Wakefield, requiring concentration of mind 
constantly, is an exemplification of the fore- 
going findings. If girls of tender years were 
placed at this work, which keeps one con- 
stantly on the feet, there can be no doubt 
that the disturbances that the older ones em- 
ployed experience would grow into serious 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 87 

evils. The barbarous practice of keeping 
shop-girls all day upon their feet cannot be 
too severely reprehended. That a joint 
interest in the home and factory conditions 
of capital and labor will secure to both the 
largest pecuniary return, and the best moral 
and physical influences, and, the higher the 
grade of intelligence on the part of both, the 
more successful the results, there can be 
little diowhtr— Report for 1874, pp. 46, 47. 

The Bureau conclude the part of the re- 
port from which the preceding statements 
are taken, by presenting to the legislature 
of Massachusetts five recommendations for 
the improvement of the laboring classes of 
the Commonwealth, one of which is the 
following : — 

" A care that certain requirements of exist- 
ing law, statute and physical, should receive 
full recognition in the employment of labor 
as affecting females in particular." — Report, 
p. 48. 



88 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

Fiom this it appears that the Bureau of 
Statistics of Labor of Massachusetts, after 
investigating the relation of sex to labor, 
have reached a conclusion similar to that 
which the Board of Health of the same 
State arrived at, after investigating the rela- 
tion of sex to school-work. One demands, 
in the interest of humanity, that the laws 
should recognize sex in their protection of 
labor ; and the other demands that our school- 
system should recognize it in the organization 
of our schools. 

"VVe next come to the personal observations 
of parents and teachers. 

Last February I received a letter from a 
gentleman, personally a stranger to me, but 
well known as an accomplished scholar and 
writer, to the effect that the case of his 
daughter, who died less than a year previous,, 
aged eighteen, would furnish an excellent 
illustration of the evil results of inappropri- 
ate methods of female education ; and that 
he would be willing to have the history of 
her case pubHshed, if its publication would 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 89 

render any service to the cause of sound 
education. In reply to a request for the his- 
tory which he had so kindly and unexpect- 
edly offered to prepare, the following note 
was received, which forms an appropriate and 
sufficient preface to the sad account that 
follows it : — 

Makch 30, 1874. 

Dear Sie, — The enclosed statement is 
from the pen of my wife. If it can serve 
the right, you are at liberty to make use of 
it — in whole or in part, in the language in 
which it now stands, or in modified or en- 
tirely different language — as in your judg- 
ment may seem best. 

You, of course, will not give names, cer- 
tainly not in full. 

Very truly, 



It is proper to say, that except a few shght 
verbal alterations, which the writer herself 
would probably have made if she had cor- 



90 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

rected the proofs of her manuscript, no 
changes have been ventured upon in the 
language by which a mother presents the 
instructive lesson of her daughter's method 
of education, and its result. 

FEOM A MOTHER. 

" At the age of fifteen Mary was a remark- 
ably fine and healthy girl : she seemed to be 
safely over the critical period, and, till after 
that time, had never suffered as many girls 
do at the commencement of their womanhood. 
Her thinking powers were quick and vigor- 
ous ; and she was the pride of her teachers, 
and joy of her parents. Unlimited mental 
progress was laid out for her ; and it seemed 
that there were to be no bounds to her 
acquirements. 

" She had then finished a good common 
school education, at the best high school, and 
had entered an institute for young ladies (a 
boarding-school) of the highest character. 
The curriculum of study there was compre- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 91 

liensive ; and it required tlie closest applica- 
tion of an ambitious scholar to succeed. 

" One hour was allowed for walking and 
recreation during the day ; and half of that 
hour could be spent, if the pupil desired to 
do so, in the music-room. As the months 
went on, I began to notice that her com- 
plexion, which had been pure rose-leaf, be- 
came almost transparent, and that the fresh 
blood left her cheeks : still she did not com- 
plain, nor lose flesh, but said sometimes, that, 
if she could sleep a week^ she would enjoy 
it ; and that it almost always happened, when 
she was unwell she had the most to do, and 
the longest to stand. Her progress in her 
studies was wonderful ; and it seems incredi- 
ble to me now that we should have let her 
devote herself so entirely to them. Her 
musical talents were great, and they were 
under cultivation also : when she was seven- 
teen, she was the first soprano singer in the 
choir of the church to which she belonged. 

" At last I began to be alarmed at the re- 
markable flow whenever she was unwell, and 



92 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 



1 



at the frequent recurrence of the periodical 
function. I felt as if something should be 
done, and consulted our family physician as 
to what could be given her, and how this 
increased action could be stopped or dimin- 
ished. 

" He prescribed iron as a tonic, but said 
that we should do nothing more ; for that 
' every woman was a law unto herseK,' and, 
as long as nothing more serious occurred, she 
was to be let alone. This from a man who 
had daughters himself, and eminent in the 
profession ! Never a word about rest, never 
a caution that she could overwork herself, and 
thus bring misery for the remainder of her 
life. She left school, in June of that year, 
with noble honors and an aching frame, and 
after two months' vacation and rest, which 
seemed to do her a world of good, began in 
September another year of unremitting hard 
study. Loving and gratified parents, proud 
and expectant teachers, looked upon her as 
capable of accomplishing all that had ever 
been done by faithful students, and of ad- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 93 

vancing far beyond all who were in the 
graduating class with her. 

" Her teachers were as kind as any could 
have been. I think the fault was in the 
system that requires so many hours of study, 
no matter what the condition of the pupil 
may be. 

" As an instance, twenty-five questions were 
given her to be answered. She was seated 
at a table, without books, from ten, A.M., till 
eight, P.M., ceaselessly thinking and writing ; 
and the twenty-five questions in classical 
literature were faultlessly answered, — and 
that, too, at a time when, had I known what 
I know now, she should have been resting on 
her bed. 

" Her father, to whom the paper was shown 
for his approval, wrote on the margin, ' It 
seems to me that the task imposed here was 
a, great one indeed; but it has been performed 
with good success.' I do not for a moment 
mean to find fault with her teachers ; for 
kinder, more interested ones no pupil ever 
had ; and the deUght that a teacher derives 



94 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

from a painstaking and appreciative pupil 
cannot be understood bj those unused to 
teaching. 

" While the dear child was meeting our 
utmost requirements as a scholar, the foun- 
dations of her life were being sapped away. 

" In May, 1872, a little more than two 
weeks before the June commencement, she 
was taken with fearful sickness and severe 
chills, just after one of the hemorrhages that 
came every three weeks regularly. Our 
doctor was called; and the first thing she 
said to him was, ' Doctor, I must not be sick 
now. I cannot afford the time. I must be 
well for commencement.' For four days she 
suffered very much, but quinine and all sorts 
of tonics brought her up ; and the two weeks 
that should have been taken to get well in 
were spent in study, study, study. All the 
examinations were passed successfully, even 
brilliantly; and she was graduated with all 
the honors of the institution. Oh, how 
proud we were of her ! and when she came 
home, frail and weak as a wilted flower, we 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 95 

said that she should have a long rest, and 
every comfort that we could give her. 

" All summer she remained in the High- 
lands of the Hudson ; yet, when autumn 
came, she was not as well as we thought she 
ought to be, though very much improved with 
regard to the monthly turns ; they recurring 
at right times now. 

" In September she commenced studying 
again : her French and music were continued, 
so that she might become still more accom- 
plished in those branches ; and lectures on 
rhetoric and moral philosophy were attended 
also. 

" The habit of study was so strong upon 
her, that she could not give it up. Now came 
swelling of the joints and fingers, and the 
old trouble, all of which she would have kept 
to herself if she could have done so ; bi. t I 
was so anxious about her, that I ascertained 
her condition, went to the doctor again, 
and begged him to tell me what to do that 
would stop the weakening periodical disturb- 
ance, as I was persuaded that was the cause 



96 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

of her trouble. He said she had inflammatory 
rheumatism, and prescribed soda. But I was 
not to do any ^^ing for the other matter; 
and, against my own convictions, I let things 
take their course. Oh ! if he had said, ' Take 
her home, and stop her studying.' Armed 
with such authority, I could have done it ; 
and how do we know but she might have 
been with us now, if I had done so ? 

" But she worked on till the 25th of Decem- 
ber. Then she came home, and said decided- 
ly she would study no more till she was well. 

" We were rejoiced at her decision ; for, 
although we were anxious that her education 
should be completed and thorough, we had 
felt for a long time that her health was becom- 
ing impaired. Still we were sure she had a 
good constitution, and thought that would 
carry her through. She did not grow thin, 
but stout du-nApale ; and such a transparent pal- 
lor, that, now I think of it, I wonder all who 
looked at her did not see that her blood was 
turning to water. Her sweet and lovely soul 
was so uncomplaining, and her smile always 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 97 

SO bright, that we never for a moment thought 
she could fade and die. 

" She brightened up somewhat for the next 
month, but still did not ' get well.' About 
the last of January her limbs swelled so 
much, that, in haste, I rushed to the doctor. 
Then he said her kidneys were congested, 
and that Bright's fatal disease was her mal- 
ady. All that despairing love could do was 
done now. In five short weeks we laid her 
in Greenwood. Whatever was the form of 
the disease from which she suffered, I am 
convinced that what she did have was 
brought on by incessant study when she 
should have rested ; and that it was fixed at 
the time that she got the severe chills, — in 
May, 1871. 

" She was by no means a frail girl when she 
entered the institute. She was tall, finely 
formed, with a full, broad chest, and musical 
organs of great compass. Her bust was not 
flat, neither was it as full as it might have 
been. Her features were not too large. She 
had brown eyes, brown hair, a very sweet 

7 



98 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

and pleasing face. With every indication at 
first of strength and good constitution, she 
fell at last a victim to want of sense in 
parents and teachers, and (shall I say ?) phy- 
sician too." 



The following observations are extracted 
from " The Boston Evening Transcript" of 
Dec. 15, 1873. The initials, " A. E. J.," 
over which they appeared, it is, perhaps, 
needless to add, are those of one whose in- 
telligence, accomplishments, and experience 
as a teacher of girls, give exceptional value 
to her statements. She presented the result 
of her experience in " The Transcript " un- 
der the title of 

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.* 

" The keen interest which is felt by a large 
class of intelligent women in New England, 

* Being a stranger to A. E. J., I have ventured 
to extract these observations from the Transcript with- 
out her knowledge. They confirm the teachings of physi- 
ology and the conclusions of medical experience. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 99 

in the discussion of the higher education of 
women, is vastly greater than has found any 
expression in print. Their mental condition 
is that of inquiry, often of dissent from what 
has been said, but not yet of confirmed opin- 
ion. Some facts they know ; they have some 
strong feehngs and wishes, but not light of 
experience sufficiently strong to enable them 
to assert that the true methods of higher edu- 
cation for women have yet been attamed. 
Co-education — identical, or other — seems to 
them as yet only an experiment. They know 
that those men who are most interested in, 
and have most to do with, co-education, feel 
sure that this is the true method ; that many 
earnest women, including those who have 
themselves been so educated, believe this to 
be the God-ordained way of training for both 
men and women. But it seems to them, that 
a subject wMch involves the future of their 
sex cannot be decided by experiments, con- 
ducted under peculiar circumstances, extend- 
ing over scarcely thirty years of time. The 
decisions arrived at by those persons who 



100 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

favor co-edncation (identical ?) do not seem 
to them to have been made with due consid- 
eration of all the data which must have place 
in any fundamental discussion of this subject, 
fraught with such tremendous consequences 
for the future of woman and of the race. 

" The question whether the present meth- 
ods of education are adapted to the physical 
constitution of woman is a matter of very 
earnest and anxious consideration in the 
minds of many thoughtful teachers. And, 
by education, I mean both the home and 
school education. I have taught for more 
than thirty years : more than half this work 
has been in mixed schools, from the primary 
to the high school ; and from year to year my 
conviction has grown stronger and stronger, 
that girls cannot endure the continuous study 
that boys thrive under ; that, as Mr. Higgin- 
son said at the discussion in the Social 
Science meeting last spring, the stimulus 
under which the girl exerts all her powers 
is not enough to rouse the calmer, more 
phlegmatic nature of the boy. 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 101 

" Although I cannot quote his exact words, 
I think I have given the substance of doc- 
trine. How many times, when I have heard 
this presented as an argument for co-educa- 
tion, I have shrunk from the contemplation 
of the effect upon the health of the girls ! 
And it is, perhaps, the word ' stimulus ' 
which holds in itself, as in a nutshell, the 
real danger. 

" It has seemed to me that the nervous anx- 
iety to reach a certain point in a given time, 
the worry over class-records, the anxious 
desire to meet the expectation of friends, the 
wearing excitement of public days, the eager 
haste which parents and friends feel, in com- 
mon with the girls themselves, to have the 
time of school-work over, have made a large 
proportion of the evils of education for 
young women. I have been painfully dis- 
appointed in the breaking-down of young 
women after leaving school, who seemed to 
be well at graduation, but who proved un- 
able to bear the strain of after-work. I 
have thought I perceived the same nervous 



102 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

strain in many of the written and spoken 
words of women on this as well as othei 
subjects. 

" It has seemed to me that the intensity of 
feeling has been so great, that it showed 
itself in a nervous, anxious tone of voice, so 
that I felt myself, by sympathy, the same 
friction. 

" Whether I have given some of the true 
reasons for the more frequent nervous ex- 
haustion of girls than boys, in the course of 
education, the fact remains, as far as my own 
experience goes. I believe that a portion of 
this nervous weakness in girls is owing to 
inheritance, something, also, to lack of proper 
care of children on the part of the mothers. 
I have not known many girls whose mothers 
had given them any careful instruction as to 
the care of their physical being. Some part 
of this nervous exhaustion is due, doubtless, 
to the bracing nature of our climate, which 
men feel as well as women, but to which the 
more delicate organization of the woman is 
the first to jdeld. Something may be attrib- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 103 

uted to bad methods of dress and living ; but, 
after every allowance is made for all the evil 
resulting from these sources, I believe some- 
thing of the trouble is to be charged to wrong 
methods of education in schools. They 
aggravate the evil tendencies already in- 
duced. 

" I am heartily glad to learn that one college 
for women is recognizing the necessity of 
adapting the methods of woman's education 
to the needs of her physical organization. 
Whether the adaptation is what it should be, 
is at present of less consequence than the 
recognition of the need. That is a step in 
the right direction. 

" There are earnest, thoughtful women, 
teaching, who are trying to mitigate the evils 
of the present system of education, and to 
avert the bad effects upon girls, of a system 
fitted rather for boys, and into which girls 
have come as an after-thought. Each one 
of these women has grown into this work, 
has of necessity accepted a place in a system 
which she did not shape, and which she haa 



104 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

neither been able nor known how to change. 
She feels that education has been a great 
blessing to her. She wishes she had more, 
and desires her younger sisters to have better 
privileges of study. But some of these 
teachers have looked with dismay upon some 
of the results of their work. They have felt 
the strain of nerves, the exhaustion of body, 
which have come to some of their most 
promising pupils ; and they have been anx- 
iously inquiring how the development of 
mind may be secured without injury to the 
body ; what can be done to adjust our sys- 
tem of instruction to the needs of girls. . . . 
No person can consider wisely, or shape 
rightly, the education of young women, who 
does not keep constantly in mind, as he 
marks out a course of study, the fact that 
the larger number of women are to be moth- 
ers, and, of the remainder, many are to be 
teachers ; and that he is to aim at the devel- 
ment of a nobler womanhood, 

" Again and again, as I have listened to 
some glowing description of the educational 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 105 

disabilities under which women labor, of their 
inferior position resulting from unjust dis- 
criminations made by law and public opin- 
ion, my heart and judgment have said Amen ; 
but when some one of these speakers, being 
a woman, has so felt these burdens as to be 
tempted to exclaim, ' Why was I born a 
woman, to endure all this ? ' in common 
with many other women, I have said, ' I 
thank God that I was born a woman.' The 
joys, the delights, nay, even the sacrifices 
and sufferings of women, do in some degree 
compensate for these disadvantages, — for 
even the impossibility of going to Harvard or 
any other New-England college. 

" I am willing to give up a college educa- 
tion with men, or even like theirs as to 
method ; indeed, I wish for a different one. 

" And yet I will not admit that woman may 
not attain as noble and symmetrical an intel- 
lectual development as man. I believe the 
perfect physical and intellectual development 
of the woman will bring to the civilization 
of to-daj' a beneficent element not yet felt as 



106 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

it should be. To woman is committed the 
shaping of the beginning of all education, 
the future of the world. If every woman 
who shall be a mother or teacher is so 
trained, beyond intellectual culture like that 
of men's, she is specially fitted to discharge 
the duties of a mother, both physical and in- 
tellectual, that whether she be the queen of 
a nation, or of one household, or never a 
queen at all, she shall 'hold her uncrowned 
womanhood to be the royal thing, that is the 
education for woman.' " 

D. H. Cochran, LL.D., the distinguished 
head of the Brooklyn Collegiate and Poly- 
technic Institute, was asked by the writer to 
what conclusions he had been led upon the 
relation of sex to education, by his long ex- 
perience as a teacher. In reply, he sent the 
following letter, with permission to publish 
it, as a contribution from him to the investi- 
gation of the question under considera' 
tion : — 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 107 

" My convictions of the necessity of 
shaping our educational systems so as to 
meet the pecuhar demands of sex are of long 
standing and very positive. I have experi- 
enced none of the ' moral ' or ' intellectual ' 
difficulties so called : on the contrary, I be- 
lieve the direction and government in mixed 
schools is easier and more pleasant than in 
schools of either sex alone ; and I have gen- 
erally found the female quicker in apprehen- 
sion, and more ready in the class-room, than 
is the male. But the physical conditions of 
the two sexes are so unlike, that I do not 
think it possible that a system of co-educa- 
tion, beyond the ages of puberty, can be 
devised, that shall have due regard to the 
highest interests of both. I see that I have 
already run away from the question you 
addressed to me ; but the inevitable conse- 
quences of these physical differences, when 
once recognized, in their bearings upon our 
systems of education, are so persistently 
obtruding themselves upon the mind of a 
teacher, that it is hardly possible to sliut them 



108 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

out ; and, unfortunately, they often unfit him 
for a patient and candid consideration of the 
truth when biassed by preconceived theories 
of education. 

" In reply to your letter, I would say that I 
had fifteen years' experience in mixed schools, 
where the pupils were classed and educated 
without distinction of sex. The last ten 
years of that period was in the New- York 
State Normal School. In that school the 
youngest females were sixteen years of age, 
and the youngest males were eighteen. The 
course of study, certainly, was not severe, 
commencing with the qualifications requisite 
for the lowest grade of certificate for teach- 
ing common schools in the State of New 
York : it continued during two years, and 
was supposed to furnish its graduates with 
the qualification for the highest or State cer- 
tificate. The larger proportion of the pupils 
were females ; and during the war it rose to 
above eighty per cent of the whole number 
in attendance. 

" About thirty per cent of those who entered 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 109 

the school completed the course of study ; and 
about seven per cent of the graduates failed 
to report themselves as teaching after leaving 
the school. A very large proportion of these 
failures were on the part of the females ; and 
it was accounted for very complacently, on 
the supposition that they had advanced from 
the charge of schools to the charge of 
families, and that their services were not lost 
to the State. But the number of students 
who were evidently unfitted for teaching by 
impahed health induced my predecessor in 
charge of the Normal School, Dr. Woolwalk, 
the veteran educator, now the efficient Sec- 
retary of the Board of Regents, to make an 
eloquent appeal to the Commissioners in his 
Annual Report of 1855, to send only such stu- 
dents to the school as possessed a sound 
physical organization, equal to the work of 
preparation required by the Normal School, 
and to the discharge of the teacher's duties 
afterwards. 

"Notwithstanding his earnest efforts, the 
evils of failing health on the part of oui 



110 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

female pupils continued, and the consequent 
incapacity to discharge the duties for which 
the State was educating them. But the facts 
were hardly suspected until suggested acci- 
dentally in 1866 ; and then the reports of Dr. 
Bailey, who had been consulted by a large 
number of the female pupils, and of a lady 
in the faculty of the school, revealed the 
astounding fact, that, among about one hun- 
dred and eighty female pupils then in the 
school, there were oyer twenty cases in which 
the periodical functions peculiar to the sex 
had ceased for over two months, and that 
there was a much larger number of similar 
cases less serious. Even then the causes 
were attributed to stairs, bad ventilation, and 
recklessness of health, without suspicion that 
the evils were inherent in a system which 
imposed upon the female continuous labor, 
and in amount equal to that of the male, who 
was in many and perhaps in the majority of 
cases her intellectual inferior, but who was 
the mheritor of continuously rugged health. 
" The logic of facts to which our eyes were 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. Ill 

SO slowly, and, I fear, unwillingly opened, 
finally led to the establishment of a more 
elastic course, optional to the females. But, 
wliile this gave relief to a part of the pupils, 
it augmented the evils to others ; for the more 
ambitious regarded the exemption from ad- 
vanced mathematics as a reflection upon their 
intellectual ability, and persisted in taking 
the severer course in spite of the advice of 
their teachers. 

" This spirit was indicated in the remark 
of one of these pupils to a lady-teacher who 
was advising her to drop the mathematics of 
the senior year, on account of failing health. 
She said, ' I will do it, if it kills me.' AVe 
can hardly wonder that the teacher im- 
patiently replied, ' If it killed you, perhaps 
it would not so much matter ; but are you 
quite willing to impose upon your friends the 
burden of your hfelong helplessness ? ' 

" The only recourse was to reduce the 
whole course of study, and its consequent util- 
ity to our male pupils, who, without more in- 
tellectual abihty, but with greater capacity for 



112 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

uninterrupted labor, were able easily to ac- 
complish what we could not safely require of 
both sexes together. Do not understand me 
as concluding against the higher education 
of females. 

" I have observed no facts to be arrayed 
against its advocates. I have been compelled 
to the conclusion that the sexes cannot be 
educated together with advantage to either, 
and that the physical disadvantages under 
which she labors render it necessary that a 
system be devised so elastic, with so much 
optional work, that the female may rest, at 
least comparatively, as occasion requires, 
without her falling behind, or becoming a 
burden to the class or the teacher. I urge 
the separate higher education of females 
solely upon physical grounds. 

" My experience has forced me to this. I 
have a record of my former pupils who stood 
high in their classes, who did their work with 
seeming ease, but who have been unable to 
teach, and now confess that they date the 
beginning of theii' present sufferings to the 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 113 

continuous labor of school. I have in my 
mind, as I write, the case of a young lady 
from Tioga County, now residing in this 
city, who stood foremost in her class, and 
without apparent effort, but who has never 
been in sound health since her graduation ; 
and she attributes her present condition to 
the insensible exhaustion of her class-work. 
Yet she would have been the very last to 
confess overwork while a pupil ; and I do not 
think that either she or her teachers then 
suspected it. 

" But I must close this hastily- written let- 
ter. I would that I had time to put it in 
better shape. If its substance renders it of 
service to the cause of right education, I can 
only say it is more than I can expect from 
its form. 

"In conclusion, I trust the present dis- 
cussion will be continued until the eyes of 
teachers are opened to the evils they are 
unconsciously inflicting upon those in their 
charge, and for whom they are so devotedly 
laboring. Very truly yours, 

8 "D. H. Cochran." 



114 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

Last February an article appeared in " The 
Brooklyn Union," under the title of " Hap- 
Hazard Papers, No. 7," from which the fol- 
lowing extracts are niade : — 

" Not forty years ago I was appointed prin- 
cipal of an institution for girls not a thou- 
sand miles from Brooklyn. A charter had 
been obtained from the regents of the uni- 
versity, an appropriate building erected, and 
abundant chemical and ph3^sical apparatus 
supplied. The design of the institution was 
to furnish a higher grade of culture for girls 
than had been given in the city or country. 
The plan was popular ; for on opening its 
doors more than three hundred pupils were 
enrolled. I saw that an opportunity was fur- 
nished of doing something for female educa- 
tion which had not been attempted, and felt 
the responsibility of my position. I had 
before me such educators as Emma Willard, 
Catharine Beecher, and others, who were 
pioneers in the cause of education, but felt 
that there was higher ground to be occupied 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN 115 

I queried, Why are not young women enti- 
tled to a culture similar to that given to 
young men in our colleges ? I will see what 
can be done. A liberal course of study was 
planned, a proper classification of pupils 
made, and the working machinery set in mo- 
tion. I saw that time was required before 
any thing like flattering results could be ob- 
tained. My assistants were inexperienced ; 
my pupils, young and undisciplined. But we 
went patiently to work, and, after months of 
thorough drilling, were able to form a senior 
department. The question. Can young wo- 
men master the abstract sciences ? pressed 
itself upon my attention. Classes in mathe- 
matics were formed, and patiently drilled. 
Essentially the same course as that at the 
military academy at West Point was, in two 
or three years, adopted, — a thorough course 
of pure and applied mathematics, embracing 
as its crowning dome the differential and in- 
tegral calculus. This was regarded by some 
as an unjustifiable assumption, which would 
surely end in defeat. But, not to be daunted 



116 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

or turned from our work, professors of math- 
ematics from the colleges were invited to con- 
duct the examinations of the classes. They 
came year after year, and testified as follows. 
Prof. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian In- 
stitute, Washington, in 1842 said, ' The 
committee were surprised and satisfied with 
the evidences of proficiency which had been 
exhibited. They were surprised and delighted 
with the rapidity and precision with which 
the exercises were conducted ; and although 
they have frequently attended examinations 
of males, yet they are free to say that they 
have never been present at one which sur- 
passed this in the evidence given on the part 
of pupils of thorough acquaintance with the 
subjects.' 

" Prof. Albert B. Dod of Princeton College 
reported in 1843, ' With scarcely an excep- 
tion, the problems and theorems — which were 
all assigned by lot, and many of them were 
of the most difficult kind — were solved with 
the utmost facility, and accompanied with 
the most precise account of the several steps 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 117 

and processes employed, and of the princi- 
ples upon which they depended. 

" ' As a further test of their proficiency, the 
principal had previously proposed to the class 
questions selected from works with which 
they had no acquaintance, and which they 
were required to solve in writing in the pres- 
ence of the principal and of the assistant 
teacher of mathematics. These problems, 
about thirty in number, selected from the 
Cambridge Problems and other works, many 
of them difficult of solution, and wrought 
out under circumstances which put to the 
completest proof the unassisted powers of the 
pupil, afforded, in connection with the oral 
examination, a thorough test of scholarship.' 

" Prof. Charles Davies, former professor of 
mathematics at West Point Military Acad- 
emy, in 1848 said, ' The examination was 
conducted without any aid drawn from the 
text-books ; and hence each pupil was called 
on to answer from her knowledge of the sub- 
ject, and could not avail herself of words 
committed to memory, or of impressions but 



118 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

faintly and imperfectly made upon the mind. 
The examination was continued for more than 
five hours ; and searching and severe tests 
were applied. The answers, the demonstra- 
tions, and the discussion of abstract and diffi- 
cult principles, all evince a high proficiency 
in mathematical science.' 

" E. C. Ross, professor of mathematics in 
the Free Academy, New York, reported in 
1849, ' The examination in algebra was 
thorough, embracing the whole range of sub- 
jects contained in the text-book. The most 
difficult theorems in geometry were demon- 
strated with a clearness of reasoning, and 
accuracy of expression, that would have been 
credible to the pupils of our highest institu- 
tions of learning.' 

" Charles W. Hackley, professor of mathe- 
matics in Columbia College, wrote in 1850, 
' The committee had expected an intellectual 
entertainment of no ordinary kind ; but their 
anticipations were far surpassed by the actual 
and vivid reality. Not satisfied with their 
performance on the blackboard, the neatness 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 119 

and accuracy of their solutions, the committee 
questioned them minutely in order to ascer- 
tain the depth of their mathematical knowl- 
edge, compelling them to pass an ordeal 
which none could accomplish without fully 
understanding the subject. There could be 
no deception. Their manner of answering 
the most difficult and intricate questions gave 
ample evidence that they were mistresses of 
the science.' 

" Elias Loomis, professor of mathematics in 
Yale College, in his report for 1855 said, 
' We doubt whether there is another female 
seminary in the United States, where six 
young ladies can be found who can furnish 
more elegant solutions of the test-questions 
than have been furnished by six members of 
the graduating class. We believe that the 
mathematical studies are pursued at the in- 
stitute with a thoroughness and success not 
surpassed by any similar institution in the 
country. We know, that, as regards very many 
of them, the institute is in this respect in- 
comparably their superior.' 



120 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

" In order to stimulate and intensify the in« 
terest of my pupils in this direction, a gold 
medal was offered as an object worthy of 
achievement. In other departments, as belles- 
lettres, logic, the mental, moral, and physical 
sciences, the same success was won. The 
success was brilliant. After many years of 
labor in that field, I left it to establish a simi- 
lar institution in another city. I have recited 
what may appear to be too much of my own 
personal history ; but I have done so for the 
reason which will be presently given. I had 
reached the solution of the question in the 
affirmative as to the competency of woman to 
master the abstract sciences, and learned that 
girls, as a class, are quicker and better stu- 
dents, up to a certain age, than boys. I had 
previously taught the latter, and could judge. 
The brain-power of girls is more facile, and 
ready in expedients. A boy's brain, on the 
contrary, is slower in development, and less 
responsive. This difference of ability, I 
think, continues up to a certain period, say 
twenty-five years, when the more sluggish 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 121 

brain of man is aroused, and ever after is ca- 
pable of greater acliievements in intellectual 
power. Tliis, I think, is borne out by facts 
coming under the observation of every ex- 
perienced teacher of the two sexes. ... I 
do not know how much harm I did to my 
own pupils; but I do know that such was 
sometimes the intensity of interest at the 
mathematical examinations, that it was occa- 
sionally necessary to allay the excitement of 
the throbbing brain by putting bandages of 
ice upon the temples of the competitors. 

" Here let me say that my conviction and 
repentance of sin in this respect took place 
years ago ; and I have learned to adopt a 
different regimen in the treatment of my 
pupils. I have abolished medals, public ex- 
aminations, and all unnecessary excitement to 
the mental discipline of girls. . . . 

"As an educator of more than forty years' 
experience in the practical business of teach- 
ing, in which time some ten thousand pupils 
have come under my care, I would protest 
against all visionary and extravagant methods 



122 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN, 

in female education ; all large communities 
of girls in college establishments, for the 
government of which quasi military codes of 
law are necessary, by which much if not all 
that is social and domestic in education is lost 
to the poor girls. 

"As we look upon the increasing physical 
deterioration of our American girls, and re- 
flect that they are to become the mothers of 
an unborn generation, on which will surely 
fall an inheritance of defective physical or- 
ganization, and consequent mental infirmities, 
it is time to sound a note of alarm, and look 
at the causes which are undermining the 
Republic, and search for the remedies that 
should be applied. . . . 

" In conclusion, let me say that we are a 
people given to experiment. There is nothing 
in our politics, economies, or rehgion, that 
must not be put to the experimentum crucis. 
This is true of our schools for girls. . . . The 
cry to our older colleges and time-honored 
universities is. Open your doors, that the 
fairer part of creation may enter, and join in 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 123 

the mental tilt and tournament. God save 
the American people from such a misfor- 
tune!" 

It appeared, on inquiry, that the author of 
the article from which the preceding extracts 
are taken, was Dr. Charles E. West, princi- 
pal of the Brooklyn Heights School for Young 
Ladies. Though personally a stranger to him, 
I ventured to address to him a letter similar 
in tenor to that which was sent to Mr. Coch- 
ran. The following is his reply : — 

Brooklyn Heights Seminart, 
June 6, 1874. 

Deae Sm, — You ask my opinion in re- 
gard to the physical evils of our present modes 
of our female education. 

From an experience of more than forty 
years in the practical business of teaching, 
most of which time has been spent in the 
education of girls, I have had abundant op- 
portunities of observing the bearing of our 
American modes of school-discipHne upon 



124 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

the health and well-being of our young 
women. Within the last twenty-five years, 
I have witnessed an evident deterioration of 
physical vigor in them, which, I think, has, 
in part, resulted from their luxurious modes 
of living, — as highly-seasoned food, unseason- 
able hours of sleep, inadequate clothing, and 
insufficient exercise, — but mainly, and in con- 
nection with these deteriorating causes, from 
the excessive mental strain put upon them in 
the process of their scholastic education. 

There has been developed a greater in- 
tensity of brain-power than has been consist- 
ent with the welfare of the vital forces. This 
more rapid maturity has been followed by a 
correspondingly earlier decay of physical 
power. This, I think, is generally true of 
girls living in our cities and large towns. 
The extreme delicacy and fragile beauty of 
the American girls is a subject of general 
remark among Europeans. They are beau- 
tiful ; but theirs is not the beauty which 
distils in the blood of the English or German 
maiden. It is wanting in strength, an essen- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 125 

tial element in the highest forms of beauty 
as it is seen dehneated in the Grecian statues 
of Juno and Minerva. One of the leading 
causes of this deterioration, as I have said, 
is the intemperate discipline of the maiden's 
school-life. 

And here I need not stop to argue 
whether there is sex in mind as well as in 
body, — a truth, I think, which admits of no 
debate ; and, if a truth, then all our theories 
of education which are based upon the iden- 
tity of the sexes must be fallacious. 

Here is the root of the evil; and, the 
sooner it is ascertained and extirpated, the 
sooner will a true theory of education for 
girls be adopted, and a noble success 
achieved. 

It is absurd to educate a girl as you would 
a boy. You might as well undertake to train 
the elephant and the gazelle for a competitive 
foot-race. All the dexterity and tact of 
Barnum could neither give agility to the one, 
nor a ponderous gait to the other. 

The great folly of the age is to treat girls 



126 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

and boys, in their education, as though they 
were alike. The girl thinks herself abused, 
if she cannot attend a bo3^s' school ; or, if not 
attend a boys' school, if she cannot have just 
such a curriculum of studies as the boys 
have. Hence our pretentious female colleges 
and universities ; and hence, too, the prema- 
ture wrecks which leave these academic halls 
to sadden parental hearts. 

I am using strong language ; but facts 
justify the language. It is a sad truth, that 
the guardians to whom are intrusted the pres- 
ent and future interests of the human race are 
false to their trusts. That they sin through 
ignorance is the most charitable view that 
can be taken of their conduct. It is patent 
to every observing educator, that young 
women cannot be put into our State normal 
schools and academies with young men, to 
pursue their studies together, with any degree 
of safety to their health. 

Another point in the discussion of oui 
subject, I wish simply to allude to. It is 
this, that, as there are no two persons identi- 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 127 

cally the same, so no system of education, as 
such, can be applied indiscriminately, and 
with success, to any number of pupils. Each 
requires a discipline adapted to his or her 
nature. The skill of the teacher lies in his 
ability to understand the temperament and 
peculiarities of each, and then, in his tact, 
to apply the regimen that shall contribute to 
the best development. Here lies the great 
art of teaching. The opposite is the system 
of cramming (a vulgar term, but aptly ex- 
pressing a vulgar system^ ^ which is but too 
universal in our day. This indiscriminate 
treatment of the two sexes in the class-room 
is most damaging to the female. It is time 
that this matter should be understood. The 
evil has run long enough. It ought to be 
discussed in every convention of teachers in 
the land. In the view I have taken of mixed 
schools of the higher grade, and of those 
institutions that are devoted exclusively to. 
female education, — which go under the name 
of colleges and universities, the professed 
object of which is to equal, if not rival, the 



128 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

culture that is given at Harvard or Yale, — I 
would not be understood as underrating the 
education of women. On the other ^land, 
I would advocate for her the highest possible 
culture ; so that she might grace any station 
i]i life to which she may be called. But it 
should be a culture consistent with and in 
harmony with her nature and office in life ; 
and the mode of culture should not be in- 
consistent with her health and well-being. 
I remain truly yours, 

Chas. E. West. 

Mr. Eben S. Stearns, principal of the Rob- 
inson Female Academy, Exeter, N.H., who 
has been known for more than a quarter of 
a century as an able, intelligent, and success- 
ful teacher of girls, and whose testimony is 
of corresponding value, writes, — 

" My opportunities for observation have 
not been those of a scientific physician, and 
I cannot speak with that assurance which 
would be required of him ; yet, as the result 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 129 

of many years' experience in the education 
of females, I cannot resist the conviction, that, 
in the methods of a girl's education, careful 
attention should be paid to the peculiarities 
of her organization. As an educator, I do 
not recognize the least inferiority in the 
female sex to males of the same age and 
advantages. 

" In patience, power of endurance, courage, 
mental activity, and success in the acquisi- 
tion and application of knowledge, few, if 
any, of the other sex, can be found to sur- 
pass many of them. 

" Let them, if they wish, seek the bar, the 
forum, the pulpit, or the healing art ; let 
them have place as professors, as school-com- 
mittees, the right of suffrage, and all else 
they desire ; and I will wish them success. 

" But, after all, I cannot resist the convic- 
tion, that most of these ends must be reached, 
if at all, by a different way from that over 
which the other sex may be safely carried ; 
that the whole course of discipline and train- 
ing must have a special adaptation to their 



130 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

peculiar organization and circumstances ; and 
that any method of education which ignores 
Bex will generally fail; while a life-hurden 
of ill-health will be entailed upon multitudes, 
if not upon all females, who are subject to it. 
Every experienced teacher of females knows 
that there are times when the demands of 
the class-room must not be too earnestly in 
sisted upon, and when nervousness and irri- 
tation must be dealt with very leniently. In 
a mixed school or college, I do not see how 
proper allowance can be made, without, on 
the one hand, lowering the standard for boys, 
or compelling girls to submit to an iron rou- 
tine, which would sooner or later crush the 
most of them. 

" What I would insist upon is simply that 
woman's education should be adapted to her 
peculiarities of body and mind, and should 
meet her own wants. 

" In determining what this education shall 
be, I would have woman speak for herself, 
if she will. Let her study herself, know 
herself thoroughly, and then say what ia 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 131 

best for her, and what will make her that 
she desires, and is entitled to be, — the equal 
of man." 

Imitating, in a small way, the method pur- 
sued by the State Board of Health of Massa- 
chusetts in its recent investigation of school 
hygiene, I sent two or three questions, sim- 
ilar to those prepared by the Board, or the 
same, and relating to the subject before us, 
to three or four eminent physiologists and 
gynaecologists, with a request for a statement 
of the conclusions to which their observation 
and study had led them in this matter. Their 
replies form the third class of observations 
previously referred to. 

Dr. Wilham A. Hammond, professor of 
diseases of the mind and nervous system, in 
the University of the city of New York, and 
president of the New-York Neurological 
Society, whose researches in physiology, and 
whose study and treatment of the nervous 
system, have given him such a just and wide- 
spread reputation, says, — 



132 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

" It falls to my lot to see a good many 
young ladies whose nervous systems are ex- 
hausted, and thus rendered heritable, by in- 
tense application to studies for which their 
minds are not suited. Only a few days ago 
a mother brought her daughter to me to be 
treated for spinal irritation, with all its ac- 
companying nervous derangements ; and I 
find, upon inquiry, that this girl of sixteen, 
who could not spell correctly, was compelled 
to study civil engineering and spherical 
trigonometry, — subjects not as likely to be 
of use to her as a knowledge of the language 
of Timbuctoo. In my opinion, schools such 
as the one this girl went to do more to un- 
sex women than all the anomalies who prate 
about the right to vote, and to wear trousers. 
Now for your questions, — 

" ' 1st, Is one sex more hable to suffer in 
health from attendance in school than the 
other ? ' 

" Undoubtedly, every physician in a large 
city, who has had experience with school boys 
and girls, knows that the latter suffer more 



TUE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 133 

frequently and severely. In country schools, 
where the attendance is only for a short time 
of the year, and for a few hours each day, 
and where the pupils have to walk two or 
more miles to get to school, the difference, 
though existing, would probably be not so 
distinctly marked. 

" ' 2d, Does the advent of puberty increase 
the liability, and, if so, more in one sex than 
the other ? ' 

" Puberty being a much more complex 
process in girls than in boys, the former are 
more liable to disease at this time ; and this 
liability is increased by whatever tends still 
more to exhaust the nervous system, such as 
mental application or anxiety. 

" I have repeatedly seen cases in which the 
flow of the menses had been suddenly stopped 
by the anxiety induced by the necessity of 
learning a school-lesson. 

" ' 3d, In the education of girls, should any 
attention be paid to the catamenial week ? ' 

" The utmost possible care. People who 
are very careful to avoid draughts of cold air 



134 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

when they are overheated, pay no attention 
whatever to their daughters at a time when 
the system is peculiarly Uable to disease. I 
have known of cases in which girls men- 
struating, and wishing to go to balls, have 
been instructed by their mothers to stop the 
function by putting their feet in ice-cold 
water; and in two of these cases epileptic 
convulsions were the result. A large num- 
ber of the cases of epilepsy in women which 
come under my care are directly the result 
of menstrual disturbances, due to inattention 
and imprudence. 

" ' 4, Is the nervous system any more liable 
to suffer from excessive study at puberty, or 
during the catamenial week, than other parts 
of the organism ? ' 

" Yes. My experience is decidedly to this 
conclusion, and the results are hysteria, 
spinal irritation, chorea, epilepsy, catalepsy, 
neuralgia, wry-neck (torticollis) ., cerebal con- 
gestion, cerebral anaemia, nervous exhaus- 
tion, and, occasionally, acute inflammation of 
the membranes of the brain. 

" William A. Hammond.' 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 135 

Dr. D. M. Da Costa of Pliiladelphia, whose 
professional acquirements, opportunities for 
observation, and sound judgment, are recog- 
nized throughout the country, as well as in 
the city of his residence, answers the ques- 
tions originally proposed by the State Board 
of Health of Massachusetts, as follows : — 

" My dear Sir, — The questions you pro- 
pound I will answer as far as in a brief way 
it is possible to do. 

" As regards one sex being more liable to 
suffer in health from attendance on school 
than the other, my experience gives but one 
reply. With any thing like equal work, the 
female sex suffers much more ; and I think 
the liability to deterioration of health, and 
to many disorders of the nervous system, far 
greater in girls at the age of puberty than in 
boys. I believe that excitement of any kind, 
and premature dissipation, maj^ come in for 
a share of the injured physical condition that 
is attributed to excessive study ; but, that 
this is most injurious, I have had opportuni- 
ties of witnessing. 



136 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

" As regards the injurious effects of over- 
work during the catamenial week, or in how 
far regard should be paid to this period in the 
education of girls, I have not studied the 
matter closely enough to express, from pos- 
itive observation, a decided opinion ; but 
common-sense, and the teachings of physi- 
ology, point in the direction of lessening, as 
far as practicable, work at a time when the 
whole system is depressed ; and, as regards 
the effect of mental strain, it may not be un- 
interesting to you to know that I saw, some 
years since, a violent case of delirium, lasting 
several days, produced in an ambitious school- 
girl busily preparing for examination. I am 
sure good will come from the discussion of 
this subject ; for there is certainly no ques- 
tion more important than how modes of cul- 
ture and mental occupation, and new fields 
of activity and usefulness, may be afforded 
women, without sacrificing their strength, 
and their full powers to become wives and 
mothers. Sincerely yours, 

D. M. Da Costa.' 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 137 

Some time last winter a teacher wrote to 
Dr. T. Addis Emmet of New York for his 
opinion upon the comparative ability of boys 
and girls to follow the same methods of edu- 
cation, or the relation of sex to education. 
Unsolicited, Dr. Emmet sent me his reply, 
and enhanced the favor of sending it by per- 
mitting its publication. His long and large 
observation of the diseases of women, for 
the treatment of which he has acquired such 
a deserved reputation both in this country 
and Europe, give exceptional value and 
weight to his conclusions upon the matter we 
are discussing. He says, — 

" I have long been impressed with the fact 
that the system is a wrong one in attempt- 
ins to educate both male and female on the 
same plan, as their organizations are so differ- 
ent. The nervous system of a young girl, 
on reaching puberty, is as susceptible of ex- 
ternal influences, as the barometer, of atmos- 
pheric changes. The health and happiness 
of her whole after-life will turn upon a proper 



138 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

management of tliis period, and until her sys- 
tem has accommodated itself to tlie change. 
A boy, at this age, should be held well up to 
the mark to keep him out of mischief; and 
sufficient out-door exercise will act as a 
safety-valve to keep him in good health. 
As society is now constituted, the female is 
the sufferer, by an inheritance of a weakened 
organization. 

*' The sexes are thrown too much together 
in early life ; and frequently puberty is forced 
before the body has been sufficiently devel- 
oped. To early and artificial excitement, to 
a taste for dress, and a neglect of nearly 
every habit of life, may we attribute much 
of the bad health of our young women. With 
an impaired organization, which has become 
hereditary in our day, the system of educa- 
tion for young women which is so generally 
pursued is a most vicious one. We find it 
pushed at a time of life when rest and quiet 
should be the rule, when all the life-forces 
are needed to accommodate the system to the 
shock, as it were, of so radical a change. 



, THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 139 

Without the female is unusually robust at 
puberty, it is impossible to develop the brain, 
by close application to study, except it be at 
the expense of an arrest of development in 
the uterus and ovaries. 

" I do not advocate a life of indolence at 
this time, but deprecate the forcing system. 
For some little time before puberty is ex- 
pected, and for a year, at least, after it has 
been properly established, there should be a 
relaxation from study. This is particularly 
true in regard to the effect of music with 
many girls, where the nervous element is 
prominently developed. At the time of men- 
struation, absolute rest should be enforced, 
both of body and mind, until the proper time 
of return, and quantity of flow, has become a 
fixed habit. 

" In the interval, attention should be paid 
to a proper regulation of every habit of Hfe, 
chiefly as regards the condition of the bowels, 
and the proper amount of exercise in the 
open air. If this course has been properly 
followed, it would be far better to go into 



14.0 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

society a few years later, and devote the same 
time of life to hard study, which the young 
men pass at college. 

"As a rule, our girls enter society too 
young, and many before they have reached 
their growth, or full physical development. 
Few are able to nurse their children, the 
needed stimulus for the uterus to regain its 
natural size : as a consequence, some local 
disease becomes established, which is likely 
to continue until menstruation ceases at the 
change of life. 

" This condition may not cause sterility, 
but is likely to lessen the number of chil- 
dren, and to transmit an enfeebled constitu- 
tion. It is not Nature's law, that such should 
be the case ; but society has perverted Nature, 
and we have to deal with the consequences." 

Dr. Fordyce Barker, the eminent profes- 
sor of obstetrics and diseases of women in 
the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New 
York, permits the statement that he has 
been led by his personal observation and 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 141 

experience to the same conclusions as to 
the relation of the epoch of female develop- 
ment to education. While preparing these 
pages for the press, the writer received a 
letter from Dr. Lionel S. Beale of London, — 
a physician whose physiological researches 
have placed him in the front rank of modern 
investigators, and made him an authority 
wherever physiological science is taught oi 
valued, — in which the following paragraph 
occurs. The extract appears in this place 
with his permission, and closes, not inappro- 
priately, this section of a brief contribution, 
probably the last which the author will make, 
to the discussion of the relation of sex to 
education, — a matter of vital importance 
ahke to the individual, the nation, and the 
race. 

" Knowing," says Dr. Beale, " as we all do, 
how very different are the organs of boys 
and girls, and what different nutritive and 
other changes are proceeding in the two 
sexes between the ages of fifteen anortwenty, 



142 TEE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

we cannot but be surprised that the same 
training should be advocated for both. But 
physiology and common-sense are utterly 
disregarded by many of the 'leaders of 
thought.' However, we may feel sure it 
will all come right in the end ; for '■Naturam 
expellas furea^ tamen usque recurret ' still 
holds : but how many poor creatures may be 
experimented upon and ruined in health 
before leaders in thought shall be convinced, 
one dreads to think." 



A GLIMPSE AT ENGLISH BRAIN- 
BUILDING. 



PART III. 

A GLIMPSE AT ENGLISH BEAIN-BUILDING. 

"Of all the intellectual errors of whicli men have been 
guilty, perhaps none is more false, and has been more 
mischievous in its consequences, than the theologico- 
metaphysical doctrine which inculcated contempt of the 
body as the temple of Satan, the prison-house of the 
spirit, from which the highest aspiration of mind was 
to get free. It is a foolish and fruitless labor to attempt 
to divorce, or put asunder, mind and body, which Nature 
has joined together in esseutial unity ; and the right cul- 
ture of the body is not less a duty than — is, indeed, 
essential to — the right culture of the mind." — Henby 
Maudsley, M.D. 

"Man is the nobler growth our realms supply; 
And souls are ripened in our northern sky." 

Mbs. Bakbauld. 

From a careful observer who has been in 
England, and who found time in the midst 
of pressing avocations to visit some of the 
English schools, and to make a few notes of 
his observations upon them, I havCv^btained 
the following glimpse of English school- 

145 



146 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

methods for girls, or of English female brain- 
building, which may be new to some on this 
side of the Atlantic. 

While he was in England, he made vari- 
ous inquiries and observations touching the 
methods of English schools for girls who 
belong to families in good circumstances ; 
and, in general, he tried to see wherein Eng- 
lish ideas of bringing up girls are different 
from our ideas. The interest of this inquiry 
lies in the indisputable fact, that the educated 
English girl of twenty is, on the average, a 
finer creature physically than her American 
contemporary : she is larger-boned, more 
muscular, fuller-blooded, and, in general, 
more robust, and better able to bear the 
burdens of womanhood. I can best give the 
results of his observations under several dis- 
tinct heads : — 

Diet. — The children's food in a good 
English home or school is, on the whole, sim- 
pler, more digestible, and more nourishing, 
than in most good American homes and 
schools ; but the main difference is not id 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 147 

the food, but in the general sentiment with 
regard to eating. To eat regularly at least 
three hearty meals every day is a serious 
duty as well as pleasure in an English family 
or school ; and there is generally some fourth 
eating of a lighter description. That a 
daughter should go to school, or begin her 
daily work, without haying eaten a stout 
breakfast, would be a monstrous horror in an 
Enghsh family : with us it is an occurrence 
too common to excite a remark either at 
home or at school. In a large day-school for 
girls in London, in which the session was 
only four hours and a half long, it was found 
that eyery girl was required to eat luncheon in 
the middle of the morning. Girls who did 
not bring luncheon from home were required 
to buy it at the school. The same thing was 
observed at a school for twelve hundred girls 
in Edinburgh. Is there a day-school in the 
United States in which a similar regulation is 
enforced? An extreme care to supply at 
regular times an abundance of sample and 
wholesome food characterizes English bring- 



148 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

ing-up of cliildren in the upper classes, 
whether at home or at school. It is too 
often grievously neglected with us. 

Fbesh Aib. — English girls are more in 
the open air than American girls ; and when 
they are indoors they live in rooms warmed 
almost exclusively by open fires. The cli- 
mate of England befriends them here. Winter 
and summer, there is a part of almost every 
day in England when it is pleasant, or at 
least not unpleasant, to be in the open air; 
and, during their winter weather, there are 
but few days when open fires fail to keep the 
rooms of a well-built house moderately warm. 
The English do not wish to be as warm in 
their houses as we do. The general English 
behef in the virtue of fresh air and out-of- 
door exercise affects very much the manage- 
ment of schools, whether for girls or boys. 
At the English pubhc schools for boys, more 
attention seems sometimes to be given to 
physical than to mental training. What 
would American teachers think of having a 
recess of ten minutes out of every hour, 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 149 

during which every child should be obliged 
to go into the open air, and the windows of 
every room in the school-building should be 
thrown wide open ! Such was found to be the 
rule at an excellent Scotch academy which 
receives both boys and girls. The girls at 
that academy were so constantly going into 
the open air, that they wore their hats even 
when in the school-rooms. The develop- 
ment of a taste for exercise in the open air, 
and of a love of out-of-door occupations and 
sports, is slow in this country. The extremes 
of our climate are against us. We build our 
houses to keep out heat and cold, not to en- 
able us to enjoy such temperate weather as 
we really have. The newness of the country 
is also against us. The mere absence of 
well-made roads is a serious difficulty. For 
sitting in the open air, and for walking, rid- 
ing, driving, boating, yachting, carriage- 
journeys, and indeed every sort of open-air 
exercise and amusement suitable for the sex, 
the English girl of the upper clas^ has a 
much better chance than the American girl, 



150 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

and she has by inheritance and training a 
stronger taste and greater capacity for such 
healthful occupations than the American. 
No reform in our methods of bringing up girls 
will be effectual, which does not include much 
greater attention than we now give to secur- 
ing for them fresh air indoors, at school and 
at home, and moderate exercise out of doors 
and open-air amusements. 

Sleep. — The usual bed-time at English 
boarding-schools for girls is nine o'clock, 
even for girls seventeen and eighteen yeara 
old. Moreover, at many of the best of these 
schools, the girls are not allowed to study 
after eight o'clock in the evening, in order 
that the mind may be at rest during the hour 
before bedtime. Even the masters and mis- 
tresses of day-schools are expected to take 
vigilant care that* their^ pupils do not over- 
work themselves at home. A schedule show- 
ing the precise time [e.g., from three to half- 
past four, or from seven to eight] to be spent 
each lay in the preparation of home-lessons is, 
at many schools, given to each pupil ; and her 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 151 

parents are informed, that, if the pupil cannot 
complete her lessons within the time men- 
tioned, she should leave them undone. In 
preparing these schedules, the master or mis- 
tress has to inquire systematically into the 
habits and hours of the families from which 
their pupils come, and to adapt the schedule 
of each pupil to her home-circumstances. So 
far as I know, such care of the pupils' home- 
work as this is very rare in American schools, 
whether for boys or girls. 

Teanquillity of Life. — An English 
girl of good family grows up, until she is 
eighteen years old, in an atmosphere of pro- 
found quiet, hke a plant which the gardener 
has sheltered from the wind, that it may de- 
velop on all sides to perfection. She does 
not associate much with her parents and their 
friends ; sees very little of young men beyond 
those of her own family ; does not go to par- 
ties, or public entertainments of any sort; 
and knows little, and cares less, about what is 
going on in the world. In all these respects, 
her life is physically much more wfeoiesome 



152 THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 

than that of her American sister. Moreover, 
she is never subjected to the influence of 
strenuous competition at school, — that most 
disastrous influence for girls and young 
women. She is never a performer at school 
' exhibitions,' or public examinations of any 
kind. Her tasks at school, or with her gov- 
erness, are decidedly lighter than those of 
l)oys or young men of the same age ; and 
«he never has occasion to compare her attain- 
ments with those of the other sex. 

The Influence of the Desiee of Mar- 
EIAGE. — A fortunate marriage is what an 
English girl desires for herself, and what her 
parents desire for her. To this end it is all-im- 
portant, in England, that a young woman, of 
whatever class in society, should be healthy 
and vigorous. When American young men 
feel about this matter as English young men 
feel, and have felt for many generations, there 
will be a great improvement in the phj^sique of 
American women, because parents will have 
strong motives, perhaps unconscious ones, for 
using all means to that good end ; and it 



r 



THE BUILDING OF A BRAIN. 153 



is an end which can be accomplished by the 
persevering use of the right means. Thought- 
less marriages are more natural in a new 
society than in an old. As American society 
gets more highly organized, such marriages 
will be less and less common. 

English education and English society are 
not without their faults ; but this glimpse at 
their educational methods gives us a hint of 
possible improvements in ours. The English 
educate the body better than we do, and so 
far build better brains. There is no reason 
why we should not equal or surpass them in 
this respect as well as in others. A republic 
should build the brains of its children with as 
much care and excellence as a monarchy per- 
forms the same task, if it would exist as long. 



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